Read Online Ten Mile River by Paul Griffin - Free Book Online Page B

Donuts bag into the street. A flock of lean pigeons dropped down on the fresh trash.
    â€˜How’d I get here?’ Ray said to the pigeons.
    The pigeons didn’t give a damn about Ray. They pecked that Dunkin’ waste as if it were manna.
    â€˜Four hours ago I’m promisin her I’m-a go clean, here I am again, hidin in the park bushes, lookin to boost an eighty-five-thousand-dollar ride that’s gonna be used as an escape vehicle for drug runners, a hit maybe? That woman’s brain is an audio recorder, girl remembers what you said word for word from the day she met you. She finds about this, she’s gonna play me back that conversation to the syllable, “And then you said, No more rustlin, and then I said—” ’
    José skidded up, a pie box strapped to the back of his bike. ‘You gotta stop talkin to yourself, Ray. I seen you, son, from halfway up the block. It’s gettin serious. That was a full-out conversation you were havin with you.’
    â€˜I was talkin to the pigeons.’
    â€˜What a relief. Fourteen skippin straight to salinity.’
    â€˜Senility.’
    â€˜Like I said.’ José broke out the pizza, slapped some into Ray’s hand. ‘The mark park his Navvie yet?’
    â€˜Nope. Damn this sausage smells good.’
    â€˜Only reason I work at that place, the sausage pie. I’m goddam addicted to it. Hoo, son, I am jacked up tonight. I can almost feel that Ninja throttle in my right hand. Vrrm-vrrrrooom.’
    â€˜This is my last heist job, J. Serious.’
    â€˜Right, right, I know, I know. Check it out. Here’s our boy now, right on schedule. Them pimps keep to a clock a’right. Workin habits are admiral.’
    â€˜Admirable.’
    â€˜Why you keep repeatin me all the time?’
    The Lincoln Navigator ate up four squares of hydrant sidewalk. Two blingy dudes got out, yawned, stretched, made their way into a building.
    â€˜That’s some high-class velour there,’ José said. ‘Rope-a-dope gold. That’s us in five years.’
    Ray gagged on a glob of pizza cheese knotting in his throat.
    José slapped Ray’s head. ‘You don’t like it, go to school come fall.’
    â€˜Hell with that.’
    â€˜Up to you. A’right then, let’s do it, brother.’
    Just like last time, they jimmied the lock clean and quiet, clipped the alarm before it blipped twice. Ray slid into the driver’s seat. José swung his bike into the back, took shotgun lookout.
    Ray made the first stretch of road fine. The next stretch he swerved to avoid hitting a squirrel, plowed the car into a tree. The air bags popped.
    â€˜Dag, man!’ Ray said. ‘Yo! Ah God. Sorry, man!’ He was covered in airbag powder.
    José wiped the powder from his face. ‘All to spare a squirrel. Gonna catch that critter, make you eat it raw.’
    Ray hyperventilated.
    â€˜Easy, kid. You’re a’right.’ José pulled his airbag clear of his body, laughed. ‘All this powder, ain’t gonna be too hard to spot us. We be like Casper without the cash.’
    Ray tried to pop his seat belt, jammed locked. ‘Git, J! Run, man!’
    â€˜The hell I will.’ José wrestled Ray’s seat belt, no go.
    The sirens came fast.
    â€˜J, please, man. Yo, I’m beggin you, just leave me, man.’
    â€˜Scarface don’t leave his pals behind.’
    â€˜Hell with Scarface, yo. This is real time now.’
    â€˜Ain’t I know it.’
    The spared squirrel settled on a branch overhanging the crashed car, chucked an acorn hull onto the car hood as it stared at the boys.
    Ray punched the dashboard. ‘José, man, just leave me alone , man.’
    The Five Two was jamming with criminals, a line of perps and their catchers snaking all the way up to the booking desk.
    â€˜How long you reckon we get?’ Ray said.
    â€˜Year, prob’ly. Year ain’t