SOUTHSIDE HUSTLE: a gripping action thriller full of suspense Read Free

cowboy jacket, “Getting back together just so you can see your son more often is not on my agenda. Your three hours with Patrick is now two hours and forty-three minutes. I suggest you get going.”
    Trick surprised his son when he scooped him up in his arms. He started for the door, hesitated and turned to Ginger. “You lost a lot of weight. What are you on, the Karen Carpenter diet?”
    “I’m fine … just working too much. I need a good long rest. Just get going, please.”
    As Trick drove the twelve miles to the pumpkin farm with Pat, an uneasy feeling hung in the car like a heavy fog stalled over Lake Michigan. Trick turned off the radio when he heard Paul Young singing, I’m Gonna Tear Your Playhouse Down . “How are you, Pat?”
    Pat sat silent for a moment, then held his Spiderman doll out in front of him and seemed to speak to it. “I don’t remember you.”
    “Pat, we talked on the phone every week.”
    “I looked at your pictures in Mommy’s album. But I don’t remember you being my daddy.”
    “We’ll change that.” Trick slowed down when he noticed a young doe standing by the side of the road. “We’re going to get to know each other all over again.”
    “My friend Will has a daddy. He reads him a story every night.”
    Trick put his window up as the warmth of October seventh cooled into early evening. “I might not be able to read you bedtime stories but you’re going to see a lot of me from now on.”
    Pat finally turned to look at his father and shrugged. “How do I know you’re not going to leave me again?”
    Trick reached over, took Pat’s hand and was taken aback by the softness of his skin, the delicacy in his care. He thought of when he was Pat’s age, how he grew up being bounced from one foster home to another, not receiving much that could pass for love and caring. “That little shit will eat you out of house and home,” he recalled one of his foster fathers telling his wife. He remembered the way the older biological sons of another family tormented him mercilessly behind their parents’ back.
    Trick gently rubbed Pat’s hand and said, “I promise I’ll never leave you again. You can trust me, Pat. I love you more than anything in the whole world … anything.” He pulled a folded white handkerchief from his back pocket and handed it to Pat. “Here, dry your eyes. We’re going to have fun tonight. No more tears. OK?”
    “OK, Daddy.” Pat broke into an unexpected giggle and more tears streamed down his face.
    ***
    While walking through the pumpkin patch and going on a hayride with Pat, Trick struggled to make conversation. His son, whom he treasured more than anything else in life, was solemn and quiet the whole evening. On the way back home, Trick realized it would take more time than he thought to re-establish a close relationship with his son. He dropped Pat off at Ginger’s living room door with the large pumpkin they picked out together along with a small one just for him.
    Getting back in his car with that final clang of steel gates still echoing in his mind from earlier that day, he had the urge to hit a bar, have a drink and talk to a pretty lady on his first night of freedom. But knew he had better get going to his destination before it got too late.

CHAPTER 2
    Trick pulled into the parking lot of Reggie’s condo. He nosed into a spot under an ancient cottonwood tree, got out and looked up to see a crow fly across the moon.
    “Trick,” a gravelly, nasal voice called out making him flinch. “You duckin’ me?”
    He turned to see Eddie Starnes walking up with a bottle of Jack Daniel’s in his hand, his muscle, Moogie, right beside him.
    “No, of course not,” Trick replied, backing up against his driver’s side door to keep Moogie from circling behind. “I had every intention of coming to see you. Just got out today … wanted to get my ducks in a row first.”
    Starnes walked up nearly toe to toe with Trick. “Well, you got my