The Dark Ones Read Online Free Page B

says?”
    “It gets around. Heard you pulled that Peckham job. Nice score.”
    “How’d you know?”
    “You think I’m a cop or something? We’re in the same business.”
    “Makes me jumpy, is all.”
    Hark put the jelly beans away. “I don’t need jumpy.”
    “Don’t worry about it,” Mike said. “So what’ve you got?”
    Hark smiled. He was going to enjoy this.
    “Like to get down to business, huh?”
    “My time’s valuable,” Mike said.
    Hark laughed, a short bark, like a blast from a machine gun. “Your time’s valuable. What the fuck? This guy.” Still laughing, he said, “You familiar with those condos going up over off Furman?”
    “Near the old Iron Works?”
    Hark nodded. “They’re half done. The builder comes to me for a loan. Needs sixty grand go keep things going. I say fine. I tell him what the vig’s going to be, he tells me to go fuck myself. I tell him get the hell out. Before he leaves, he tells me he might go to the attorney general regarding some of my ... business dealings.”
    “And you want me to ... ?”
    “Burn the fucking things to the ground.”
    “I don’t do arson.”
    “The price is good.”
    It had better be damned good . “I’m listening.”
    “Fifteen grand.”
    Mike could keep Mom’s chemo treatments going for a while with that money, maybe have enough to fix the leak in the roof. “Why so much?”
    “I want to nail this fuck, teach him a lesson. And you’re good. You’ll keep your mouth shut.”
    Mike leaned forward. “I’ll need twenty. It’s high risk.”
    “I got the fire marshal in my pocket, low risk.”
    “Twenty.”
    “Sixteen or get out.”
    Something told him it would be wise to accept the offer. “Okay. I’m in. What if I get caught, though?”
    “You don’t want to think about that,” Hark said. “Concentrate on the job.”
    “Consider them toast.”

    Mike pulled into the driveway. He killed the Monte’s engine and sat with his hands on the wheel. What if the job went wrong? He could wind up at the bottom of Lake Erie. But what if it went right? The money would be nice. But arson. That was a new one for him. He risked putting his ass in the fire—literally—but you didn’t turn down Hark. The guy had connections, and if this job went well, there might be more. That could lead to more cash and better care for Mom.
    He got out of the car and climbed the steps. He paused for a moment, looking at the peeling blue paint on the house. Forty years in the Valley and his mother wouldn’t move. The Mc-Crearys and the O’Laughlins were dead or living in the burbs. The Hoolihans remained next door. The Irish had moved out and the junkies and gangbangers had moved in. The Purina mill was long gone, and when it had been demolished, Mike had watched the rats in a veritable conga line leave the place. The Valley had begun a slow decline, like an aging movie star losing her looks. Except there was no facelift or Botox for a neighborhood.
    He entered the house, inhaling the aroma of cigarette smoke and bacon grease. He slipped through the house, stopping at the photo on the dining room wall. In it, he kneeled, dressed in pads and uniform, his helmet at his feet. That had been sophomore year and he had started at free safety. He was All Western New York that year, but that was before he met Mickey Schuler, and according to his mother, before he had flushed his life down the toilet.
    Schuler had been team manager. A wiry kid prone to wearing heavy metal T-shirts and studded belts, he had a whistling asthmatic wheeze. That alone had kept him off the team, and it was probably best, because half the team would’ve cheerfully snapped Schuler’s leg. Mickey had a knack for irritating, slipping tacks in a set of cleats or juicing the water bottles with Dave’s Insanity Sauce. The hot sauce in the water had left him on the verge of getting fired.
    One day after practice, Schuler approached Mike. “I’m thinking of robbing a store. Maybe that