A Man of Lies by Ben Crane

Author:Ben Crane
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pegasus Books
Published: 2023-07-04T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 37 Jonny Boy Wright, 10:36 A.M.

Jonny Boy is exhausted.

Vic is dead, Holzmann wants to kill him, and he and Cass betrayed Barrett, the only person who has been nice to him. Jonny Boy is ready to lie down on the ground and let it all end. He’s led a miserable life in which he couldn’t even be a criminal right.

He deserves all the hatred that’s heaped upon him. Maybe if he hadn’t been such a coward, Vic would still be alive. Maybe if he’d stood up to Cass, and they hadn’t turned on Richard, none of this would have happened. But he is a coward. He’ll never stand up to Cass. When everyone else abandoned him, she was there. She’s only hard on him to make him stronger. If he doesn’t want to be yelled at, he should be less of a little bitch.

Cass pulls Jonny Boy into the spare bedroom. This is where he and Vic would stay up all night playing video games. The tiny twenty-four-inch TV is still in the corner, though the Xbox is long gone. The lockpicker tries to make himself small in the corner of the room. Jonny Boy goes to the window, keeping himself low. Cass thinks Holzmann already has people back there, but it looks clear.

“How long’ll it take you to open the safe?” Cass asks. She swings the shotgun—when did she take the shotgun from him?—to aim at the man. His once crisp shirt is covered in sweat stains, and the collar hangs limply open.

“Thirty minutes,” he says. “If I have the key. What’s going on?”

Cass ignores his question and holds up the key she got from Barrett. “Is this the real one?”

Jonny Boy has never been great at reading people, but even he can see the recognition in the man’s eyes.

“Right,” Cass says. “Stand back, Jonny Boy.” She pockets the key and turns to aim the shotgun at the safe.

“No!” The lockpicker cries, throwing himself toward her. The bike chain pulls him up short. “Even with the key, you can’t shoot it open. The force will trigger the mechanism and destroy what’s inside.”

“Fuck!” Cass shouts. A loud crash signals the arrival of Holzmann’s men at the front of the house.

“Come on,” Jonny Boy says to Cass. “Let’s just go.” He opens the window and works his body through the gap.

“Fine,” Cass says. “But we’re coming back for that.” She waves at the safe before following him through the window.

Barrett’s scream comes from inside the house, and the gunfire begins. Jonny Boy drags himself over the wall and through the neighbor’s yard. He and Cass make it to the end of the alley without running into any of Holzmann’s men. Gasping for breath, Jonny Boy slows to a walk, but he keeps moving until they have several twisting blocks between themselves and the house. They betrayed Barrett, and then he came back to help them, buying them time to escape. Jonny Boy doesn’t want to think about what happened to him.

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