Duke City Split Read Online Free Page A

to participate, want to make sure I get what’s coming to me. I’m up for this thing. But I’m not making a career of it. I’ll leave that to you guys.”
    “Wise decision,” Bud said from the backseat. “A life of crime isn’t for most people. It wears on the nerves. Makes it hard for you to trust other people.”
    “No shit,” Johnny said. “I don’t even know your names.”
    “You can call me Mick. That’s Bud in the backseat.”
    Johnny gave him a sour look. “Your real names.”
    “They’re close enough. We’re not building a long-term relationship here, kid. We’re doing business together for a few days. After it’s done, you’d better forget you ever met us.”
    Johnny’s face lit up. “Does that mean you’re gonna do it?”
    “We’re leaning that way,” Mick said. “We want to watch the bank tomorrow, see the coming and going. But if still looks good, we’ll do it on Monday.”
    “That’s perfect,” Johnny said. “Monday’s my day off work. I won’t have to call in sick or anything.”
    Mick looked in the rearview, met Bud’s eye.
    “You still want to do this with us, huh?” he said to Johnny.
    “If you’ll let me.”
    They’d been traveling south on Wyoming, most of the stores already shut up tight for the night. Mick steered the Charger into a parking lot across the street from the bank. Pulled into a slot and killed the engine and the lights.
    He turned to Johnny, found him staring at the darkened bank across the way. Streetlight glow spilled on his face.
    “Here’s the deal,” Mick said. “Bud and I have a system. We’ve worked together before, and we’re comfortable with each other.”
    “Sure, I understand that—”
    “We’re less comfortable having you involved, but we think we’ve figured out a way to manage it. We’ll go in first, get everyone on the floor. You’ll wait outside, keeping a lookout, until we tell you to come in. Then you and I will load up the money while Bud handles crowd control.”
    Johnny nodded.
    “When you come in the bank, you’ll be wearing a ski mask, long sleeves, gloves. No way for anybody in there to identify you. You don’t get captured on film.”
    “Sounds good—”
    “And,” Bud said, “you don’t carry a gun.”
    “No? Why not?”
    “Because we’ve got enough to worry about, doing this job,” Mick said. “We don’t need to worry about getting shot.”
    “I wouldn’t shoot you—”
    “You wouldn’t
mean
to. But you might get excited.”
    “Come on, man, I know how to handle myself.”
    “You told me before, you don’t even own a gun. You’re not used to handling them. We’ve had lots of practice.”
    Johnny frowned. Behind him, Bud said, “The guns are mostly for show anyway. Just to keep people in the bank from making a mistake.”
    “Besides, we need you to keep your hands free,” Mick added. “For loading up all that money.”
    The kid’s face creased into a smile.

Chapter 8
    Mick spent Saturday morning watching the bank. He parked a block south and across the street, in the shade of a bedraggled pine. The drive-through window was busy, but only a few customers got out of their cars and went inside. He saw nothing that worried him.
    After the bank closed at noon, he ate lunch at a Mexican café, then drove across town to a West Central Avenue storage unit he’d rented a year earlier under the name of Charles Franklin. The unit was one of thirty arranged in a horseshoe around a paved lot, all surrounded by a chain-link fence with razor wire coiled on top. An office with tinted windows fronted the place, but Mick drove past without stopping. No one came out to check on him as he drove to the units at the rear of the lot.
    He backed the Charger up to his unit and got out of the car. He opened the unit’s padlock, then rolled up the door, letting daylight spill inside. A few boxes were stacked against one wall, but they were decoys.
    The item that mattered was an Army-green footlocker against