Free Trust Me by Peter Leonard Page B

dressed like a farmer in blue overalls. Both wore ball caps on backwards, bling swinging from their necks. They had green beer bottles in their hands, big ones, quarts or GIQs.
        O'Clair was more concerned about Cornrow, who was closing in on him, only twenty feet away now. He wore long shorts low on his skinny hips showing three inches of plaid boxer above his waist, his white tank tucked into the shorts. There was a tattoo just below his right shoulder that appeared to be a miniature version of himself, his face but without the rows. He had something on his mind as he walked up to O'Clair, measuring him. Cornrow was O'Clair's height, about six feet maybe a little taller. He was muscular but lean. O'Clair didn't think he was coming to ask him for directions or a donation to his church.
        Cornrow said, "Yo, Cap'n, we goin' take the boat. Give me the motherfuckin' keys."
        O'Clair said, "You talkin' to me?"
        Farmer and Sweatshirt moved up next to Cornrow, standing in a half circle in front of O'Clair now, the Seville behind him.
        "You see any other chickenhead motherfucker standing here?" Cornrow said.
        O'Clair said, "You must have me confused with someone else."
        Cornrow grinned, flashing two rows of teeth, the front two displaying a diamond pattern. "Think so, huh? Who we got you confuse with?"
        "Somebody that's going to let you take my car."
        All three of them grinned now. Cornrow made the first move—came at O'Clair and O'Clair went to the body—nailed him in the gut. Cornrow grunted and bent over, holding his side like he'd been hit with a sledgehammer, and O'Clair threw a sweeping right hand and broke his jaw. Cornrow went down, and O'Clair juked and weaved and stepped in and hit Farmer, flattening his nose against his face, crushing it. He dropped and didn't move.
        Now O'Clair turned ready for Sweatshirt, and a beer bottle crashed into his forehead and shattered. O'Clair took a step back against the Seville, dazed, leaning on the driver's door, blood running from a gash in his forehead into his left eye.
        
        
        Bobby came out of the party store, scratching ink off an instant lottery card with a dime. He had a bottle of iced tea wedged in his armpit. He heard glass break. He glanced up and saw the big white guy from the casino, blood on his face, beating the shit out of a black guy in a hooded sweatshirt. Two more black guys were on the concrete parking lot.
        He finished scratching the card, a game called Joker's Wild, and dropped it on the oil-stained asphalt littered with Day-Glo wrappers. Bobby unscrewed the top off the iced tea, took a drink and got in his car, thinking he'd better get the hell out of there while he could.
        It took six stitches to close the cut on his forehead. O'Clair had gone to Providence Hospital Emergency. The waiting room was full of people that were bleeding and moaning. The admitting nurse took one look at him and put him in a wheelchair headed for Triage.
        O'Clair peeled back the bandage and studied it in the rearview mirror, felt the red swollen skin and the prickly ends of the nylon stitches, while he talked to Stu Karp and found out Bobby's cell phone bills went to a PO box in Troy. O'Clair said, you got an address?
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Chapter Nine
        
        Karen said, "These are the two guys I was telling you about." And then to Bobby and Lloyd she said, "This is Wade."
        Bobby said, "Wade, huh? I've never met anybody named Wade."
        Wade had pale skin and long dark greasy hair. He glanced at Bobby, studying him, his face blank, expressionless.
        "What's that got to do with the price of beer?" Wade said.
        Bobby grinned and said, "What the hell does that mean?"
        "Whatever you want it to," Wade said.
        Bobby looked at Karen and winked. They were in Memphis Smoke, a big open restaurant and blues bar in Royal Oak. It was