Bad Decisions by Jon Athan

Author:Jon Athan [Athan, Jon]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-11-18T22:00:00+00:00

14

Punishment

The clock on the dashboard read: 12:24 AM.

Scoot parked in front of a boxy, rectangular mobile home. Light came out of a window to the right of the front door in flashes—a television. The neighboring mobile homes were consumed by the darkness. Dogs barked and cats mewled in the distance. A gust carried faint shouts through the trailer park. Some cars whizzed down the streets surrounding the lot.

Rocco opened the passthrough slot on the taxi’s plastic partition. He held a black ski mask in his hand.

“Take it,” he said.

“Wh–Why?” Scoot stuttered.

“This guy’s trouble. I might need some help.”

“I don’t need a ski mask to keep a lookout. I mean, Jesus Christ, if anyone saw me in that, they’d call the cops in an instant. That mask screams ‘home invasion.’ I’m not wearing it.”

“I don’t need you to keep a lookout this time, Scoot. I need your hands, your muscle. This guy, Brett Edgerton, he’s a hard-ass—a tough son of a bitch. He’s a construction worker or some shit like that, but he’s always sticking his nose where it don’t belong. Tried to sell drugs but got high on his own supply. Tried to be a player and pimp his girls but lost ‘em all to other pimps. Tried to be a loan shark but got himself in debt. I’ll put it this way: He’s like me or one of Luciano’s other guys, except stupid and reckless. There’s no telling what he’ll do in there, especially if he’s high.”

Scoot said, “This is none of my…”

He stopped and raised his brow, eyes on the rearview mirror. He watched as Rocco put a goaltender mask over his face.

“None of my business,” Scoot said in a soft, frightened voice.

Rocco said, “You’re my assistant tonight. That means you do what I say. If I need you to stand guard for me, you stand guard. If I want you to drive me someplace, you drive. If I need you to help me deal with some bastard… you get the picture, don’t ya?”

“I don’t… What exactly do you need me for? What are you going to do to this guy anyway?”

“We’re going to hurt him—badly.”

“Hey, man, that was not part of the deal. I’ll drive you anywhere, I’ll keep a lookout, but I don’t want any blood on my hands. Don’t rope me into this, all right?”

“You roped yourself into this when you visited our shop and let us record you. When you fucked that hooker, when you fucked that retard, when you got fucked by that–”

“Stop it!” Scoot shouted.

He covered his face and turned away from the rearview mirror. He breathed heavily, then he slammed his palm on the steering wheel. Rocco’s words felt like punches to his ears. Retard—that was a haymaker. And he didn’t want to hear about his other ‘activities.’

Rocco said, “The point is: you’ve already got blood on your hands, on your dick, and in your asshole. This is nothing. As a matter of fact, this is justice. You heard our girls, didn’t ya? This man killed one of them.

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