Jack Kilborn & Ann Voss Peterson & J. A. Konrath by Flee - a Thriller

Author:Flee - a Thriller [Thriller, Flee - a]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 1461138612
Publisher: Joe Konrath
Published: 2011-04-29T05:00:00+00:00

1

Winter meant death in Chicago.

Death to the homeless, turned away from overcrowded shelters and forced to stuff their ragged clothes with day-old newspaper.

Death to the motorists, skidding on filthy, snow-covered highways into the paths of trucks and guard rails and head-crunching support posts.

Death to the elderly, slipping on sidewalks and shattering brittle bones, and to the poor, unable to pay both the food bill and the gas bill.

Death to Billy Chico.

Chico was a small-time hustler and big-time loser who liked to bet the ponies and hit women. He was more successful at the latter. On his more reflective days—and there weren’t many—Chico figured he’d lost more than eighty thousand dollars in the ten or so years he’d been placing bets. He would have lost even more if the puta he married hadn’t sent the Man after him for child support. Chico knew the kid wasn’t really his. That child was bug-eyed, bare-assed ugly, and couldn’t have had any of Chico’s genes in his roly-poly body. Chico often compared himself to the ponies he loved to throw money after; sleek and muscled and hung, with a mane of gorgeous black and eyes that could stare through you, sister. A thoroughbred if there ever was.

Unfortunately, the thoroughbred just caught a bad tip, and couldn’t cover the bet he’d made with his very connected bookie. Two thousand bucks worth of bad tip, baby, five weeks of factory wages. A debt he couldn’t pay, especially since he had to fork out cash for rent, the bills, and child support for that skank and her ugly brat.

Chico, in a word, was powerfucked. And getting more PFed by the minute, because his marker was due and Marty the Maniac had definitely alerted his goons to begin collection proceedings.

Collection proceedings didn’t involve friendly chit-chat over coffee. They involved hurt. Lots of hurt. And Chico was far too fine to have anything broken, scarred, burned, or severed.

So Billy Chico took his last sixty bucks, bought a piece from a runner with gang ties, and went out to rob Teddy’s Liquors on 23rd and Cal.

It was cold, cold enough to freeze the juice that your brain floats in. Chico wore his trademark black leather jacket with the fringes hanging from the sleeves and he looked fly, even though it kept him warm for shit. The liquor store he picked was three blocks from his apartment; one with late-night hours and a constant flow of business. Not a corner store that just sold beer by the bottle, but a classy joint that had all that expensive wine and gift packs and overpriced whiskey in ceramic jugs shaped like Corvettes. Fancy shit like that. Chico figured on one of the busiest liquor days of the year—Super Bowl Sunday—the place would have at least two k in green. He might even come out a couple bucks ahead on the deal.

Billy Chico stopped at the front door, his skinny ass cheeks knocking together like two frozen oranges, an icy hand wrapped around the butt of the .

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