Innocent Victim by Brian Cornett

Author:Brian Cornett
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-04-16T16:41:32+00:00

Chapter Twenty-Three

We weren’t coming for lunch this time, so I drove around to the back of Smokin’ Joes and pulled up near the barbeque pit. Buddy was just starting to lay out a half dozen decks of ribs on the grates when I grabbed him from behind, spun him around to face me and hoisted him up until his ass was on the concrete rim of the pit. Buddy is a tall, skinny guy and no match for me. I forced him to lean back over the glowing coals.

“Hey, man. What the hell you doin? Lemme down. You burnin’ me.” He recognized me then and hollered, “Mistah Alex, lemme go. Ah ain’t done nothin’. Lemme go.” He was screaming and thrashing around. I held him tight over the coals.

“You lied to me, Buddy. The other day you told me you didn’t give the Stroud kid any dope and he then showed up out at Colletti’s all coked up on Saturday night. Why’d you lie to me about that?”

He was squirming and trying to pull forward away from the heat but I kept pressing him back. “No, suh. Ah didn’t lie. He din’t get nothin’ from me. Lemme go. Mebbe I know where he got that junk.”

I pulled him off the edge and let go of his skinny arms. He ran to the outside water tap, cranked it open and held up the hose connected to it, spraying water over his head and down his back. Sean and I watched him carefully but we knew he wasn’t going anywhere. He turned the water off after a couple of minutes and wiped his face and head with a wet rag. Then he came back to where we stood by the barbecue pit. Buddy looked at me like a puppy that had been unjustly punished. “You got no call to do me like that, Mistah Alex. Ah ain’t never lied to you.”

“I’m sorry, Buddy. But we know he got the coke he wanted from somewhere and you’re the only one we know that handles that stuff.” I took him by his boney shoulders and turned him around and so I could look at his backside. His sauce spattered tee-shirt was still steaming a little but it hadn’t caught fire. “I don’t think you’re burned too badly. You’re just a little scorched. I’m pretty sure you’re gonna live.”

Buddy twisted around and tried to look over his shoulder to see how his pants looked. There was a faint scorch mark across the seat of his jeans but the back of his tee-shirt didn’t show any signs of burns. I suspected that he would feel like he had a pretty good sunburn from his time over the coals. I said, “You look all right. Nothing serious. And I am sorry. You’re right, I shouldn’t have done that to you. I apologize.” I waited a minute while he mopped his face with the rag again. “You did say you knew where he got his fix. Who sold it to him?”

He looked around as if he thought someone else might be listening.

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