Run Baby Run Read Free Page B

drove into the house on the downriver corner of the street.
    It was an odd structure, a four room long shotgun double used as a single. The front door originally on the right side for that unit had been filled and covered with weatherboards. This made the structure look off-kilter, what with only a left side front door and no windows. The steps to the porch running right down the middle had a rail on only the right side, further confusing the eye.
    Those were the structural idiosyncrasies before the roaring Ford Explorer entered the house.
    Luckily for the next door neighbor, the SUV didn't also make it into his place. The vehicle plowed through the front parlor of the corner shotgun from the side. The still-existing front middle wall and fireplace slowed it enough so that only the front of the vehicle made it through the opposite outside wall.
    The two adult women sleeping in the middle rooms immediately awoke and flung themselves to the floor, grabbing the three little ones with them. They thought it was gunshots or a bomb, not expecting an SUV had demolished part of the house.
    The two men inside the vehicle looked at each other, cursed, locked their doors, and pulled out all of their guns. They put a couple of them on the dashboard and held the others tightly. The driver Johnny grimaced and sighed.
    "Boss is gonna be fucking mad," he said while taking out his phone and dialing.
    Simultaneous to all of this, Hutch took Piety up a block to Claiborne, doubling back the same direction he'd come from. Like Robertson, Claiborne was elevated above the train yard.
    "Guess I'm gonna have to do all this shit myself," Hutch said.
    Then it hit him.
    "But I keep all the money. If it didn't fly out the jeep."
    In his exuberance to check on the money and with the recent experience of running several stoplights in the chase, Hutch ran the red light at Claiborne and Franklin. He'd slowed his speed but totaled the jeep and a little Honda Civic he struck. Both mangled front ends.
    The other driver was a slight young man on his way home from a security job that paid minimum wage. The Civic was how he kept from relying on infrequent buses that would make his shift across town run more than an extra hour. He got out of his car pushed near the neutral ground and crumpled by the jeep still up in it.
    "What the fuck!" he said, shoulders pulled back for conflict.
    Hutch stepped out of the jeep with a different look. He wasn't mad. He was full-on furious. He'd just realized that the beer case flew out of the jeep with Clint, so he had no money, no partner, no car, and rough characters were looking for him. He limped over to the security guard, his left knee banged up in the crash.
    Holding his hands up in an appearance of appeasement, he said, "Sorry, little brother."
    With a quick left, Hutch rabbit punched the man and followed it up with a powerful right. Put him down so fast the security guard fell right into nap time.
    Hutch limped over to the sidewalk, leaving the smaller man prone on the ground behind him.
    "Don't know what I'm gonna do, but I got to get off the street," he said.
    There were no witnesses to his hobbling along Franklin. Had there been, they'd have seen a man in his early 50's. He was solidly built, with a face and complexion similar enough to that of Motown star Willie Hutch from decades back.
    Hutch, whose legal name was Raymond Pate, liked the high school nickname, especially since everyone had called his best friend "Raymond at the end of the block" to differentiate them. Hutch was better. Tight. Tough. A good name during his boxing days.
    He was now twenty years past his prime but still strong enough to handle the out-of-control drunks and belligerent types as a bouncer at Club Big Easy in the 500 block of Bourbon. Hadn't forgotten how to knock a man out with a punch, like the guy on the ground.
    New Orleans and the West Bank were home. Pops had a heart attack after seeing his drowned house after the flood, but Hutch