Kathy Hogan Trocheck - Truman Kicklighter 01 - Lickety-Split Read Online Free Page B

heard that part about the gun,” she said. “What kind of trouble are you getting him into now?”
    “No kind of trouble at all,” Butch said, not looking up.
    “Then why the .38? He’s still on probation from that last no-kinda-trouble-at-all you talked him into.”
    “We was set up,” Butch protested. “How was I supposed to know there’d be a Doberman sleeping in that liquor store all night?”
    “Why the gun?” she repeated.
    Butch sighed. He might as well go on and tell her. If he didn’t, Curtis would. He was so pussy-whipped by this skinny piece of tail it was pathetic.
    As he filled her in, Tammi’s close-set blue eyes narrowed to slits. “You’re sure this guy really works at DataTrack?”
    Butch held up a folded rental agreement. “Oh, yeah. When he was late coming back with the money, I called up the work number he gave. He works there all right.”
    She still wasn’t convinced.
    “There must be five, six hundred people working out there. How do you know he really works on computers like he says? How do you know he’s not a janitor or something?”
    Butch let his chair tilt back a little, propping his black lace-up workshoes on the metal desktop. He picked up the sports page again.
    “He’s no janitor,” he said. “You ever hear of Wade Hardeson Jr.?”
    “That the guy with the Cutlass?”
    “His old man,” Butch said. “That’s Wade Hardeson Jr. as in chairman of the board of Orange State Savings and Loan. As in the big white house on the water on Snell Isle with the forty-foot Bertram tied up at the dock. As in rear friggin’ commodore of the Yacht Club.”
    “If his old man’s rich and such a big hotshot, why is the kid renting that piece of shit from us? And why’s he owe us money?”
    “Unfortunately,” Butch said sadly, “in many cases the chip off the old block is in reality full of termites. Our friend Wade has got him a bad drinking problem and a spic girlfriend. His daddy’s cut off Wade the Third’s allowance. Now Wade’s got this computer program. It could make him rich enough to tell his daddy to go jump in Tampa Bay. But Wade don’t have hardly enough money to get in the pay toilet at the track, let alone into the clubhouse. He let on when I visited him last week that he was gonna try to sell the computer thingy to some high roller. What Wade told me was, soon as he gets the money from this guy, he’ll pay us what he owes us, plus give us tips on a couple races.”
    Tammi’s mind was racing along as Butch talked. “Why settle for a couple of races?” she asked. “Why not get him to tell us the races for the whole season?”
    “That’s just what I was thinking,” Butch agreed.
     
    Wade Hardeson III popped the top of a can of Pabst Blue Ribbon beer, took a long sip, and frowned. Five more cans littered the burnt-orange shag carpet around him. He poked one with the toe of his sneaker, just to make sure he hadn’t overlooked anything. He hadn’t.
    He belched. Made it into a long drawn-out anthem. Shiiiit.
    “What the hell,” he muttered, and emptied the last can, drinking the lukewarm beer down in an effortless series of gulps.
    A skinny orange kitten, only a little lighter in color than the carpet, crept into the living room where Wade was sprawled on the sofa. The cat sniffed daintily at the cans. “Get outta here, Asshole,” he said, tossing the last can at the cat’s head and missing.
    Wade called the cat Asshole. Rosie, whose cat it was— hell, whose apartment this was—called it Punkin.
    “Bummer.” He said it aloud. Looked at the three hundred-dollar bills he’d laid out on the milk-crate coffee table. Some high roller. Some fuckin’ stake. He said that aloud too. “Some fuckin’ stake.”
    And tonight was the night. Big night. Wade’s program was ready. He just needed the rest of the data Rosie was supposed to bring back from Sarasota.
    “Hurry up,” he’d told her. “This is important, babe.”
    She’d given him that look, in