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

twenty-three-year-old intellect was well aware that sixteen-year-old Halle represented statutory rape. But he could look and fantasize. Perfectly round, little ass in tight jean shorts, bronze quads popping with each stride. Long, blonde hair flowing down the middle of her tanned back. A brilliant smile that stopped his heart every time he saw it. She was the full package and he loved her, not that he’d ever let anyone know. He licked his chapped lips as his partner Bub lumbered out the door behind her, a missile-lock stare on her swinging back end. A stare so hard he stumbled off the curb and dropped his pizza box; but only giving up when Halle climbed into her mom’s car.
    “Goddamn,” Bub said as he hefted himself into the truck with an acrid wave of body odor, like he had dozens of rotting rodents stuffed in his pockets. He scratched the sparse stubble on his cheeks, the fat folds on his neck bunching up as he craned to watch the car drive away. “That Halle gets any hotter and I’ll just have to take my chances with the Old Bear.”
    “He’d skin your fat ass alive, Bub.” The car headed east up the hill toward downtown and out of sight.
    “I ain’t scared of big bad Sheriff Bear.”
    “Then you’re a fuckin’ idiot.”
    “Wish he’d back off us,” Bub said, balancing the greasy pizza box on his lap as he got situated. “We gotta make a living, right?”
    They waited in silence while the Lake of the Ozark weekend tourists mixed with the locals around them. Bub finished off the pizza slices, downed the forty-ounce can of Budweiser and scrubbed his mouth with the back of his meaty forearm. He belched loud enough to shake the flakes of rust from the side of the truck.
    “So what the hell are we sitting here for?” he asked, tossing the empty box to the floor and wiping his greasy fingers on his overalls.
    “We’re waiting,” Willie said.
    “Duh. For what?”
    “For Shane to call.”
    Bub huffed and lit a cigarette from a white generic pack.
    A rail-thin woman with stringy, black hair that looked as if it hadn’t been washed in a month walked out of Casey’s, a bottle of soda in her hand and two dirty, snot-nosed kids at her feet. Delilah Warner. She stopped when she spotted Willie’s truck. She jerked her head around checking out the area for cops, trying to appear casual—and doing a piss poor job of it.
    “Get a load of Delilah,” Bub said.
    “She looks like she got hit by a truck. You got anything on you?”
    “Yeah, a little bit.”
    “Good, ‘cause she’s heading our way.”
    Delilah slid over to Bub’s side of the truck, dropping a twenty in his hand. He handed over a plastic bag and she disappeared around the corner of the store.
    “Right in front of her fucking kids, man,” Willie said.
    “So?”
    “So? That doesn’t bother you?”
    “Why would it? Cash is cash. When we getting another shipment?” Bub asked, stuffing the twenty in his pocket. “We’re runnin’ low. Down to pebbles.”
    “Supposed to be next week.”
    “Mexicans hauling it again?”
    Willie nodded. “Monday, I think.”
    Bub belched again. “I hate dealin’ with those greaseballs. Puffin’ their chests and flashin’ their guns. Assholes.”
    “Got no choice, Bub. Bear has a vapor lock on supplies. We can’t make any quantity worth a damn on our own.”
    “Well, Shane’s still making a fat ass roll off it. What about us?”
    Willie didn’t answer. The economy sucked and people were strapped, which cut into Willie’s margins. Of course, Shane got his cut. Shane Langston always got his cut.
    “Shane oughtta say something to those guys,” Bub continued. “That last package sucked. Might as well been selling rocks of baby powder. You try it?”
    Willie shook his head. He didn’t touch the product. Never do what you deal. Especially when what you’re dealing ain’t yours in the first place. He’d seen firsthand what meth did to people—his mom, the poster child. Lank hair, black gums,