Bluff City Pawn by Stephen Schottenfeld

Author:Stephen Schottenfeld
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2014-06-19T16:00:00+00:00

Nine

There is no name on the truck, but when Joe sees who’s inside it his eyes grow like he’s reading capital letters, an even wider expression of surprise than when Huddy last appeared at his door and Harlan didn’t. And Harlan won’t turn his face from the windshield to explain why. “Get in here,” Joe snaps, his eyes lighting on Huddy. “You said we were telling no one!” Yelling before Huddy’s inside the entryway, the argument without the security of a room, the door slamming behind him, and Huddy figures nobody’s home.

“Yeah. Wives. And Harlan is—”

“Is what?” Joe’s neck wrenching.

“We need three sets of hands.” Huddy’s voice as quiet as Joe’s is explosive, hoping to meet up in some calm loud middle.

“Three sets of hands,” Joe says, shaking his two. “This is a two-way deal. You got the math wrong. You’re already fucking up numbers.”

“You wanna carry two hundred guns?”

“Why can’t you carry them?” His teeth grit, his mouth champing down.

“Because. I’m in the gun room. And you’re guarding the truck. Harlan’s doing the lifting.” Joe shakes his head at the last name. “You got someone you trust better? Maybe one of your ex-wives? Or maybe you wanna ask Lorie for a little help with a couple thousand pounds. Of guns. And all you do is bitch about who’s working for you. This one’s lazy, this one’s suing, this one’s stealing. Ain’t never heard about no right-hand man.”

“You never mentioned needing three on this,” Joe says. “The whole time you talked, it was me and you. You sat at my table, you never said him.”

“We can’t leave the truck alone when the guns are coming or going. Are you crazy?”

“Crazy is what’s sitting there right now. What you worrying over, someone walking in off the street? On Dogwood? Come on.”

“I’m being careful. With the house. With the son—”

“Please. I trust him more than Harlan.”

“You never met him.”

“Exactly.” He stares at Huddy, his eyes measuring. “This is your big chance. Why you chancing it?”

But Huddy thought the saying went different. The man who never took a chance never had a chance. Or maybe, He never had a chance because he didn’t take one. Something about your big one-time moment. He won’t correct himself or Joe.

“You just like him, borrowing trouble,” Joe says, seeing one bad brother mirroring the other; the business barely begun and Huddy already needs to redeem himself. “He stays in the truck. He stays till we seal the deal. Signs on the dotted line, and then we fetch him.” Harlan stuck in the driveway, just like he is now—Joe the mean parent keeping his boy in a room—a precondition Huddy should’ve thought of first. He looks up and nods.“When we get to the shop, when I’m on lookout, I’m watching him.”

“Watch everything.”

Joe shakes his head. “Harlan . . .” But it’s too much at once and he can’t figure out what part to bury. “He’ll just run his mouth. ‘You remember this?’ No. No, Harlan, I don’t. My whole life, what I remember—work.

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