Hard Time Read Online Free Page A

Heavily tattooed, they were standing around a table laden with slabs of crystal meth, cocaine and various weighing scales. They eyed me suspiciously. The biggest swung a spoon with cocaine towards my face. ‘Snort it.’ There was danger in his wide and alert eyes.
    Concerned, I looked to G Dog for help, but he just nodded back with a serious expression. G Dog hadn’t told me these men were members of the New Mexican Mafia, the most powerful criminal organisation in Arizona at that time. Or that the man with the spoon was a hit man on a killing spree. Sensing the gravity of the situation, I rolled a hundred-dollar bill, pushed one nostril flat and snorted the cocaine through the other.
    The man with the spoon nodded and shook my hand. But he didn’t smile. None of them smiled.
    ‘Shaun, let’s go talk business,’ Raul said, leading me into a bedroom. ‘G Dog tells me you can get this Ecstasy shit and that it’s all good.’
    ‘I can get it,’ I said, my throat gagging on the numbing aftertaste of the cocaine.
    ‘None of us have ever done that shit. The only thing I do is smoke good weed – know what I’m saying? – hydro, kind bud. I’m having a party at the weekend, some women are coming over, and we wanna check your Ecstasy out.’
    I was present when they all took Ecstasy for the first time. Not only did they smile, it reduced them to overgrown teddy bears who wouldn’t stop hugging me. That’s how I earned the protection of the New Mexican Mafia. It was a relationship that probably saved my life later on, when, for reasons of their own, they killed some rival gangsters who were about to shoot and rob me.
    In the run up to the dot.com bubble, I started day trading and became a millionaire. Now I had enough money to really expand my operation. My new main supplier in LA, Mike Hotwheelz, was arrested, and the other LA suppliers like Sol couldn’t fill my increasingly large orders, so I imported bulk Ecstasy. At the peak of things, I had my own rave clothing/music store and LSD chemist. I married one of the most glamorous glitter girls in the rave scene, Amy – a political science student at the University of Arizona who was also a bisexual topless dancer – at a chapel on the Las Vegas Strip, and we moved into a million-dollar mountainside home in Sin Vacas, Tucson. I had run-ins with gangsters such as Sammy the Bull Gravano, my main competitor.
    The first time I discussed business with members of Sammy the Bull’s crew, I brought along one of the notorious Rossetti Brothers, who also worked security for me. Outside the meeting place, Heart 5 in Tucson, I drank some GHB, which had the effect of making me fearless. I said to Rossetti, ‘While I talk to Spaniard, make sure you’re always somewhere you can pull your gun in case they try to kidnap me. I’m not going to start any shit, but who knows how big a crew he’s with or what might happen.’
    ‘No problem. If they try anything, I’ll open up on the mother-fuckers. ’
    I was at the bar when a six and a half foot man with dark spiky hair and biceps as broad as my neck tapped me on the shoulder. ‘I’m Mark, Spaniard’s partner. He wants to see you in the VIP area.’
    ‘OK, Mark.’ I shook his hand and followed him.
    ‘Glad you came, English Shaun,’ said Spaniard, a well-groomed Hispanic. ‘Mark, clear that sofa so we can all sit down.’
    Mark yelled, ‘You need to move, so we can sit down!’ The people on the sofa jumped up.
    To the side of us, Rossetti slipped into the VIP area.
    As I sat down between the two of them, the GHB jolted my brain. It made me playful and crazy. Like my grandfather used to do to me, I squeezed their legs just above the knee and said, ‘So what’s this all about?’
    They were taken aback for a few seconds, then Spaniard laughed, and said in a friendly voice, ‘Look, we know you’re doing your own thing. You’ve got a lotta people working for you. As do we. It would be best if we worked together rather