Who'll Stop The Rain: (Book One Of The Miami Crime Trilogy) Read Online Free

you're a helluva wheelman," I
told him. "You been doing this kind of thing off and on for a long time.
What are you now, forty-five? Fifty? You didn't come all this way by making
foolish mistakes. Don't start now."
    Shimmy
tensed his jaw, pulling his lips tight against his teeth. Zaz eased away from
him a few inches down the couch. My body shifted into high alert, nerve ends
tickling the underside of my skin, making me itchy. I held my breath, but not
so anyone could see.
    No
one moved. For the
briefest time, the thoughts entered my mind again. The ones I'd tried to keep
at bay.
    Guns and money. One gets you the
other. Whenever I strap on this gun, I have to be ready to use it. That's part
of the deal, right? That young girl found out the hard way. I hate what
happened last night — I fucking hate it, but what could I do?
    Everything
remained still, silent. The sun tried hard to squeeze through the drapes, but
the room remained in shadow. The aroma of fresh coffee hung thick in the air.
Steam still rose from the cups. My eyes never left Shimmy.
    Shimmy pushes hard enough, I might
have to blast him. He's my good friend, for Chrissakes, and I'm ready to kill
him. All this to get the money. This money. Mine. Mine and Dorothy's.
    It was all worth it, wasn't it? Won't
this money give us what we want? A little breathing room? A shot at a decent
life?
    How many more times can I do this?
    Shimmy's
every muscle remained immobile, taut. Only his head moved as he slowly turned
his veiled stare toward mine, like a big predatory animal peering from the
hidden sanctuary of the brush.
    After
a few seconds, he said, "Okay. Twenty-two grand it is."

4

 
    Logan
    Saturday, June 25, 2011
    8:20 AM

 
    A S SOON AS SHIMMY AND ZAZ LEFT , I
took the coffee cups out to the kitchen and placed them by the sink. Back in
the living room, I looked at my end of the take nestled next to my gun.
    There
it is, big guy. That's what you wanted. What it's all about, right?
    Well,
isn't it? Come on! Twenty-two fucking big ones and a dead teenaged girl who is
right now staring up at Chicho's ceiling while a cop with a camera is
photographing her bloody corpse from all angles, and other cops in latex gloves
are picking her over, hoping to find some kind of forensic evidence, hairs or
some shit.
    Before I turned off the
floor lamp, I picked up a stack of bills and riffled them near my ear. The
soft, rapid leafing of the currency whispered to me. Words of love.
    Another quiet riffle of the
cash. Back into the bedroom, gun on the nightstand, money in the drawer. Peel
the clothes off, pile into bed.
    Dorothy, awake and waiting,
opening her arms. Kissing me, kissing, kissing.
    Oh,
yes.
    Kissing, kissing …
    Much as I wanted to do this
for the rest of the day, I squirmed.
    I said, "Wait, baby. I
want to say something."
    "You go ahead,"
she said. "I want to do something." More kissing. She reached between my legs, searching for an
erotic salute. She got one, of course, but I gently guided her hand away.
    "No, I'm
serious." I sat up, and she froze.
    "What — what's
wrong?"
    "Nothing's wrong. In
fact, right now, it all feels so right." I ran a hand through her velvety
brown hair. "I made a decision on the trip back down here tonight. Well,
actually, I just really made it final a few minutes ago. I'm quitting."
    She jerked herself upright,
exposing generous breasts dangling over the width of her stomach like ripe
fruit on a thick tree. "Quitting? You mean —?"
    "Quitting. No more
jobs." I figured I couldn't make my point any more clearly.
    A big grin settled onto her
face and she raised her arms in the air. "Well, hallelujah! The young man
has seen the light!"
    The sarcasm was her way of
covering up her ambivalence. On a certain level, Dorothy really did want me to
go straight. She wanted to know I was earning a regular paycheck and sitting
home with her every night watching TV or some such shit.
    On a different level,
though, she liked the things she could buy with