Neon Prey by John Sandford

Author:John Sandford [Sandford, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, azw3
Publisher: G.P. Putnam’s Sons
Published: 2019-04-23T05:00:00+00:00

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LUCAS AMBLED DOWN the alley, walked through the garage door, and found a store with piles of crap and the stink of truck exhaust and diesel. There didn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to the crap. Stacks of slightly crushed rolls of Bounty paper towels were piled next to heaps of car wax bottles, with boxes of peanut bars on top of it all; cartons of nails sat next to a hill of tattered books; bottles of Softsoap sat on top of a couple of battered-looking speakers. The store itself was the size of two double garages, and the merchandise went to the ceiling. The shoppers seemed to be more browsers than people looking for specific items.

Lucas checked through a basket of Levi’s premium blue jeans, found that they were all bootcut, let them go. An elderly woman sat by an old-fashioned cash register, chewing on a strip of beef jerky. She asked him, “You finding what you want, hon?”

“I was wondering if you ever get any accordions in here,” Lucas said.

“Aw, hell, we had two Hohners in here last week; they both went in an hour. You keep checkin’ back, though. We do get them in from time to time. There might be a concertina in the back by those ukes, if you’d be interested in that.”

“Let me take a look,” Lucas said.

He wandered toward the back, toward the black steel door. A rack of cheap-looking musical instruments sat within a few feet of it. Lucas took down an electric guitar, peered at the brand name on the headstock—ZziZZiX—plucked a string, which flopped instead of vibrating.

He peered down the fretboard, as if gauging its flatness, and heard the lock grind on the steel door. He put the guitar down, stepped to the door, and when it opened an inch he shouted, “Mallow! Now!” and yanked the it open. The man on the other side—skinny, gray-faced, with dark bags under his eyes, and startled—followed the door out into the sales area.

Mallow was coming fast for a man with a build like a bowling ball, and he jammed past the gray-faced man and yelled over his shoulder, “Shut the door!”

Lucas stepped inside and pulled the door closed and hurried after Mallow into a brightly lit room lined with built-in metal filing cabinets and with a couple of tables, a half dozen chairs, and an oversized television looming down from a wall. Four bulky men were standing around one of the tables, looking at something Lucas couldn’t see.

Mallow spread his arms, his pistol in one hand, and cried out, “Hi, guys! What do we got going here?”

One of the bulky men shouted, “Fuck!” grabbed a plastic Office Depot bag off the table, and ran at Mallow and stiff-armed him. Mallow went down, and two of the other men jumped over the supine cop, the three of them then heading for the alley door. Lucas swung at the lead man, who put the plastic bag up to take the blow, and what looked like candy exploded from it.

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