The Constantine Conspiracy Read Online Free Page A

claim to fame he’d ever enjoyed. And they were keepers—Tina, a tiny blonde who worked at the movie theater by his house, and Lisa . . . well, a black-haired, curly-headed baby girl like her made a man glad to climb out of bed every morning.
    Bobby shook his head to clear their pictures from his brain, then slowed as he reached his target. Time to stick his nose in it; no more wasted thoughts. He inhaled deeply and shut his eyes to focus. One million dollars, he whispered, one million dollars, one million dollars, one million dollars.
    The money had arrived just two days ago, more cash than a man like him ever hoped to see. It waited for Tina in the trunk of the rusty car that sat on concrete blocks out behind her momma’s house. He had hidden it there just last night, money to provide for the only two people who had ever really cared about him.
    One million dollars, one million dollars, one million dollars. His one chance to show he loved them, even though he’d screwed up so many times they might still have a hard time believing it. One million dollars.
    Just this morning he had mailed Tina a letter that told her where to find the cash. “The cops will probably show up,” he warned Tina in the letter. “Ask a lot of questions. Just tell ’em the truth. You left me over a year ago. My drug use drove you away. You left me to protect Lisa. Say nothing about the money; use it to make a better life for you and Lisa. I do love you two—make sure Lisa knows that when she’s old enough to understand.”
    Bobby opened his eyes and looked at the sky where the rain had stopped. Gray clouds scuttled away as if running from the carnage about to unfold below them.
    “Why you want this done?” Bobby had asked the man who showed up at his door about a month ago and offered him the job.
    “No need for you to know that,” said the man, a shaved-head stocky guy with eyes like steel-gray marbles. “You interested or not?”
    “Why me?” Bobby asked.
    The man waved his hand over Bobby’s ill-kept trailer. “Look around, Bobby boy. What’s to lose? No wife, daughter taken away. Drugs own you and that AIDS ain’t going nowhere. Your life expectancy makes a fruit-fly look ancient.”
    “Where you from?” Bobby asked. “You talk like me, but different too.”
    “Swamp country,” the man said. “But that don’t matter for you. I need an answer. You saying yes or no?”
    “A million dollars?”
    “Do whatever you want with it.”
    “You bring it to me?”
    “Two days before the job—the money and other essentials.”
    “You’ll tell me how to make it all happen?”
    “I’ll draw you a freaking picture if that’s what you need.”
    Bobby weighed his options. He wasn’t a crazy man and this was a crazy notion, but no matter how he studied it, his future looked bleak. A two-time felony loser as a drug peddler; one more and he’d go to prison till his teeth fell out. He had no friends but other junkies, no job, and no prospects. A clinic doctor had predicted his death before Christmas unless he got in a rehab program somewhere. Better chance that he’d one day play wide receiver for the Dallas Cowboys than for that to happen.
    “I’m in,” he said to the man.
    The man did as he had promised, instructions, materials, and cash showed up exactly on time. Now here Bobby stood. Time to do the deed. He dropped his eyes and patted his jacket. Although he didn’t know much about explosives, the stocky man had assured him that the amount pocketed in the vest around his torso would do more than enough damage to make the point he wanted to make. Bobby pivoted and glanced at the entryway to the building before him.
    A Muslim mosque.
    Bobby checked his watch. 6:45 a.m.—almost time for morning prayers to end. The stocky man said that’s when he needed to sprint inside, get as close to the prayer room as possible, then light the place up. Take them all out if possible. Bobby’s heart rate notched up and sweat poured down