The Dope Thief Read Online Free Page A

big kid flipped it off, screaming something Ray couldn’t hear.
    Manny covered his mouth with his hand and leaned toward Ray. “What do you think?” He put sugar in his coffee and stirred.
    Ray kept his head down, talked to the table in a low voice. “About Rick? I think I don’t know anything about him except he’s got a jones.”
    Manny said, “Or a bruise on his arm, supposed to make us think he’s a hype. I could try to see Harlan, see what he says.”
    “Yeah, maybe, but if Harlan is jammed up he’ll just lie. What does he have to lose?” The waitress came over and poured more coffee. They watched her go. Ray shrugged. “We need the third guy on this one. The thing is I’d rather have a junkie than a cowboy, if that’s my only choice.”
    Manny nodded. “Some idiot who’s shooting just to hear the gun. Scaring the shit out of the citizens.”
    “For a junkie it’s a straight line. Money’” Ray drew a line in the air with his forefinger. “’Dope. The cops come, he runs away. What do you want, some guy’s going to make a stand, shoot it out with the bulls? Get his name in the paper?”
    “Fuck that.”
    “Yeah . . .” Ray said, but thinking: What am I, then? Not a junkie, not quite, or not yet. Not a cowboy. He used the gun, but didn’t love it. He thought of himself sometimes as a professional. Or as acting like a professional, if there was a difference.
    He and Manny had been robbing dealers for about a year. Had been in the life for a long time before that, of course. Stole cars, broke into houses. They had met in Juvie, a place called Lima, out in Delaware County. Taking off dealers wasn’t something you could do if you didn’t know who was who, what to look for. You had to score dope to know dope dealers, or know people who did. Where to go, what to watch for. Manny had been in rehab and knew people who were out copping every day.
    They were careful, in their way. They would watch the houses they picked out for a few days or, if they were really hungry, a few hours. Watch the traffic, get a feel for how many people were in the place, who might be carrying. The trick was to go in strong but not crazy. Take control of the situation. Ray had found them the windbreakers with DEA in yellow letters on the back at a flea market in Jersey. They bought badges at an army surplus store in Connecticut and hung them on chains around their necks. It calmed the dealers down. No one wanted to get tagged, but only a stone retard was going to throw down on a Fed. Only when they were down on the floor, their wrists bound with plastic wire wraps, would they begin to get it. Who they really were, Manny and Ray. Why they were there.
    At least the older or more experienced ones would get it. Then they would curse, spit, roll around, put on a little theater for their girlfriends, but it was over already by then. Manny would have the pump gun pointed at their heads, and Ray would be looking under the toilet lids and in the freezer.
    The dealers made Ray feel like he had his life together. Dealers had their wives and mothers and girlfriends and kids in the houses with them holding dope and cash. He would tell them they were lucky he wasn’t some crazy Dominican there to cut throats. They’d be cooking meth and poisoning their own fucking brats in the next room, the air full of charcoal smoke and acetone mist. Speed cookers, small- time Mexican coke dealers with
Scarface
posters on the wall. Hillbilly tweakers with wide eyes and bad teeth, what they called now meth mouth. Big crosses around their necks, smoking dope to calm their racing hearts. When they were in the cuffs, they’d sing hymns and cry and call down Jesus Fire. It made Ray want to laugh’conjuring up a Tweaker Jesus in his head, a Jesus with gray teeth and unwashed hair, tattoos reading born to lose and born to die.
    MANNY WALKED RAY to his car, looking at the dark sky. “More rain?”
    Ray went into the glove compartment and pulled out a short