Poor Boy Road (Jake Caldwell #1) Read Free Page A

his daughter’s in the hospital and he’s got a pile of bills that would choke a horse.”
    “I’m not running a goddamn charity. Carlos didn’t use the money he borrowed for medical bills. He bet on a dog-shit horse and lost. Again. What’s really going on?”
    “Nothing,” Jake said, slumping in the chair in front of Keats’ desk.
    “Bullshit. How long you worked for me?”
    “I don’t know. Five years?”
    “Six if you count Oklahoma,” Keats said. “You were a dark soul who didn’t mind dishing it out.”
    “I still dish it out.”
    “Carlos is the third fuckin’ guy you’ve spotted this month. I got no use for someone who can’t follow simple orders.”
    There was no reason for Jake to lie. “It’s getting hard to sleep at night,” he said, focusing on his bad knee, avoiding Keats’ stare.
    “You want out?”
    There it was, laid out for him. Leaving the life had dominated his thoughts for the last few months. But it would be a tricky extraction, maybe fatal. “No. Maybe. Hell, I don’t know.”
    Keats eyeballed him. “See, you know a lot about what I do. Guys with less knowledge than you have disappeared.”
    “I’m no rat. You know that.”
    “An enforcer with a conscious isn’t worth shit to me. You want out?” Keats asked again.
    Jake twirled the ring on his finger. Echoes of screams. Bones snapping. “Yeah, I want out. This is turning me into someone I swore I’d never become.”
    Keats hoisted himself from the desk and walked to a wet bar. He poured two fingers of Scotch from a crystal decanter into two glasses, adding a single ice cube to each. He handed one to Jake. Keats took a slug and leaned his steely frame against his desk. Jake stared at his drink. He hated Scotch.
    “Your old man’s down in Warsaw, right?” Keats said. “Dying from what?”
    “Probably cancer. He smoked like a chimney.”
    Keats watched him, calculating. Jake figured he had a fifty-fifty shot at staying alive to the end of the day.
    After a minute, Keats spoke. “Tell you what. You handle a problem for me, and I’ll let you go free and clear.”
    “What’s the problem?”
    “You heard about Big Teddy?”
    “Who hasn’t?” Jake said. Teddy Garrett, Keats’ rival in Kansas City. The Feds swept up Teddy and his crew last week in a drug raid in nearby Independence.
    “With Teddy out of the picture, the roaches are coming out of the woodwork. There’s one roach keeping me up at night.”
    “What’s it got to do with me?”
    “This roach operates in your old neck of the woods,” Keats said. “Has all of Benton County under his thumb, but he’s eyeballing expansion into KC. He’s an ambitious little turd who I want permanently squashed. You’re the boot that’s gonna do the squashing. Plus, there’s a nice going away present for your years of service.”
    “I take care of the guy and you just let me go?”
    Keats nodded. “You bury this guy and your old man. Two birds with one trip. Then you can ride off into the sunset and do whatever the fuck you want.”
    Jake narrowed his eyes. Here was his lifeline and he wouldn’t have to spend the rest of his days looking over his shoulder. Keats wrote on a slip of paper and slid it across the table.
    Jake lifted it and read the name. “If I don’t want the job?”
    Keats swallowed the rest of the Scotch and chuckled. “I think you know the answer to that question.”
     
     
     
     

CHAPTER FOUR
    Willie Banks angle parked at the entrance to Casey’s convenience store west of Warsaw’s downtown. He ran his hand along the rusted side of his truck—its primary color best described as primer—tracking the lunchtime crowd. He waited for three things: the phone call; his partner Bub to finish taking a crap; and for sweet Halle.
    A red flash of guilt rolled through Willie as Halle strolled out the front door, but it didn’t stop him watching her across the parking lot. He may not have finished high school, but even his limited