Gods of Mischief Read Online Free Page A

at Hemet’s park and recreation department. These were skills I used for earning my livelihood after dropping out of high school at age sixteen, and I would return to them whenever my other ideas of turning a dollar turned to shit.
    I started a landscaping business of my own, but my utter indifference to education and the five years I’d lost on my extended fishing trip to the Cascades soon caught up with me. It was a real wake-up call when I discovered that business accounts and contracts require reading and writing, never my strong suits. So I went out and hired me a midget with a high school education to handle the business end of things while I did the grunt labor.
    This arrangement worked fine until I needed a new truck for my expanding operation. When I asked my partner to cut a business check, the little guy stalled and tap-danced around my request. Suspicious, I went to the bank and was told the entire business account balance had been wiped out.
    The fucking midget had ripped me off for over sixteen grand.
    Slightly ticked off, I grabbed my .30-30 Winchester and drove over to his house, a real nice place his father owned on a golf course. I announced my arrival by firing a rifle shot through the picture window while that thieving little bastard sat watching television. Then I informed his dad that the next bullet would go through his son’s pint-sized head.
    But that’s not what got me arrested.
    The midget’s old man, a business executive in town, said he would keep the cops out of the matter and pay back half the sixteen grand his son had stolen if I’d call things even. I figured half was better than none, so we shook on the deal. That should have been the end of it, only I had this so-called friend who knew the whole story.
    Pretending to be me, that asshole phoned the businessman, then threatened to rape his daughter and shoot more holes in his fancy house unless the remaining eight grand was dropped into a designated trash barrel outside the local Sambo’s restaurant.
    The midget’s old man agreed to the blackmail, then called the cops.
    The next day I’m hauling mulch in my pickup when I see a curious sight. My buddy is sprinting down San Jacinto Street with four sheriff’s deputies in hot pursuit. Within minutes sirens are wailing, I’m surrounded by cruisers and a young deputy is ordering me out of the cab at gunpoint.
    â€œDon’t move!” shouted Deputy Duffy as I emerged with my hands up.
    I found the kid deputy’s tone decidedly unfriendly.
    â€œDon’t you fuckin’ move!” he repeated.
    So I didn’t move. Kevin cuffed my wrists, read me my Miranda Rights, then hauled my ass to jail on felony charges of extortion, attempted rape and attempted murder.
    Now my name was known across the San Jacinto Valley for all the wrong reasons. The district attorney, up for reelection, was determined to prosecute—apparently with the aid of my cock-sucking friend, who’d cut a deal with the D.A.’s office and agreed to testify against me in exchange for leniency. I was eighteen years old and looking at serious hard time: three consecutive fifteen-year prison terms.
    But the superior court judge, who happened to be the same magistrate who’d handled my adoption, took both parties into chambers and pushed through a plea bargain. Afraid of going to trial, I pled to extortion and got ninety weekends in jail and 120 hours of community service, which was spent picking up discarded cigarette butts outside the county courthouse.
    Now here I was twenty-four years later sitting in the shitshack across from Detective Duffy, who had become a good friend once he’d quit pointinghis gun at me. After discussing the assault at Johnny’s Restaurant, I asked Kevin point-blank, “When are your people gonna do something about the Vagos?”
    â€œWhat do you mean?”
    â€œThey’re causing chaos all over town, man. And I know