The Castle Doctrine by Schaefer Craig

Author:Schaefer, Craig
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-944806-04-0
Publisher: Demimonde Books
Published: 2016-09-25T16:00:00+00:00

23.

The King of Las Vegas had tumbled from his throne, and from the looks of him, he’d landed hard. Nicky’s tailored shirt was spotted with damp stains, cuff links gone and his sleeves sloppily rolled up. His matted hair, once movie-star sculpted, hadn’t seen a comb or a shower in a week. Bristle covered his cheeks, too long to be roguish, too short for a beard.

I poured a splash of whiskey into each glass and slid one his way. “Probably shouldn’t be pouring for you, since I suspect you already drank half the shelf, but what the hell.”

He lifted the glass in a tired, shaking hand. I saluted, knocking my glass against his.

“I fucked up, Dan. Got blindsided. I was looking left when I shoulda been looking right.”

“Happens to the best of us.” The whiskey tingled on my lips. “I was just in prison myself.”

“I heard about that. The Outfit set you up. Used you to get at me.”

“Planted all the evidence in my trunk. Everything the feds needed to come at both of us, full force.” I paused. “Damn, I miss that car. I’m driving a Spark now. Looks like a goddamn lime on wheels.”

Nicky grunted out a chuckle.

“So what have you been doing, besides hiding in here and murdering your liver?”

He ran his fingers through his greasy hair. “Looking for a way out. The bastards burned me down, Dan. My businesses, my bank accounts, all that real estate out in Eldorado, the helicopter…the feds impounded everything. ‘Evidence.’ Even the stuff I had in a shell trust. The stuff I stashed under an assumed name. They must have been watching me for years. They had a dossier on me a mile thick. I was so sure, so damn sure I was made of Teflon. That as long as I greased all the right palms and covered my tracks, I’d be on top of the game forever. Now what’s this I’m hearing about Jennifer taking over?”

“Not taking over,” I said, then paused. “Well, yeah, she kinda is, but it’s more of a ‘first among equals’ deal. Somebody had to rally the troops.”

“I’m surprised it wasn’t you.”

I shrugged. “Didn’t think I wanted that kind of power. It’s a trade-off: you get the big money, the big prizes, and the big risk right along with it. Play your cards wrong, you can go from the top of the world to…well, here.”

“You said ‘didn’t.’ Past tense.”

He held out his glass. I poured another dollop of Jack for both of us.

“I made some bad decisions,” I told him. “Got knocked down. And instead of standing right back up, I laid there and took it. Laid there so long I fooled myself into thinking that’s where I belonged.”

“You played yourself,” he said.

“Now I understand what everybody’s been telling me. I got a clean slate when I broke out of Eisenberg. A new start. What I do with it, where I go, that’s all up to me. So now I’m thinking about the future. Making some hard choices about what I want, and what I’ll do to get it.

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