Shadow Boys Read Online Free Page B

anything.
    “Maybe back in the day you were a badass. Maybe back in the day you could have stopped me.” I lowered my voice, barely above a whisper. “But not today, Tommy Joe.”
    He might as well have sent a press release to announce his next move. His right hand clenched and unclenched several times. He finally made a fist, reared back.
    “Don’t do it, Tommy Joe. I do not want to hurt you.”
    He swung anyway, a roundhouse toward my jaw, the kind of punch that looked impressive in the movies but was totally impractical in real life.
    If you see it coming you have oodles of time.
    I caught his wrist, yanked it forward and then up behind his back. Then I kicked his feet out from under him and slammed him to the floor, face-first.
    He roared like a grizzly bear and bucked against me.
    Astride his back, I grabbed his other arm and brought it to meet the first, then cuffed him using a plastic zip tie from my jacket pocket.
    “Where is it?” I said.
    “Screw you, ass-munch.”
    I sighed. Then I twisted one of his ears until he screamed.
    “The d-d-desk d-drawer!”
    I let go. Dragged Tommy Joe to the wall and rolled him upright with his back pressed against his bound hands, legs spread. Then I walked around the desk and opened the largest of the drawers.
    The laptop was there, resting on top of a small plastic bag containing six or seven pencil-eraser-sized chunks of methamphetamine and a pint bottle of vodka.
    I dumped the meth into an ashtray, added an ounce or so of vodka, and lit the whole thing on fire with Tommy Joe’s lighter.
    “See you around.” I tucked the laptop under my arm and headed for the door.
    “You are fucking toast.” Tommy Joe tried to sound menacing. “I’m gonna hunt you down like a—like a—”
    I stopped. “Like a wild dog? A feral pig?”
    He didn’t say anything, so I left.

    Dallas police headquarters
    1981
     
    Raul Delgado, eleven years old, closes his eyes for a moment. He tries to erase the image of blinding light and the thunderclap that seared itself into his brain and left a constant ringing in his ears.
    Even with his eyes shut, however, the light and the ringing remain. The only result is that the smell of urine and cigarette smoke becomes stronger.
    He’s still wearing the same clothes he had on in the backseat of the police car, the ones he peed in when he became so scared.
    When the cop pointed the gun at him.
    Right before the huge explosion that changed everything.
    He opens his eyes.
    The cigarette smell comes from a man in a light-blue, Western-style suit, a Dallas police badge clipped to the jacket pocket. His face is cratered like the pictures of the moon Raul has seen in school.
    The man is smoking Pall Malls and drinking coffee. He is also leafing through a folder, which Raul imagines has something to do with himself and his brother, Carlos.
    The two of them are alone in a small room. The room is furnished with a metal table and three metal chairs. The walls are brick, painted a pale green. The floor is gray concrete.
    The man with the pockmarked face sits across from Raul. He hasn’t spoken other than a gruff hello when he entered a few minutes ago.
    Raul rubs his nose with the back of his hand. His face and shirt are still speckled with blood. Raul can’t quite figure out why. He knows he isn’t hurt, not cut anywhere. He’s pretty sure the two cops who were in the front seat, the red-haired one with the gun and his bald friend, weren’t hurt either.
    Therefore the blood must be from his brother, Carlos.
    But that makes no sense.
    Carlos is invincible. He is incapable of being hurt. If only he will show up, he’ll put all this to rest.
    The cop closes the file. He lights another Pall Mall and blows a plume of smoke across the table.
    “How many times you been arrested, Rah-ool?”
    The cop’s accent is thick, like his mouth is full of marbles.
    He is the kind of man Raul’s mother has warned him to avoid, a redneck who doesn’t like Mexicans or