Your Friendly Neighborhood Criminal Read Online Free Page A

thing standing—at least most of the time.
    Halfway down the block there were no street lights at all and sitting on the boulevard was a torn and battered chintz sofa covered in yellow floral pattern cloth. On the sofa was a Caucasian man in his early twenties with a gaunt face and deeply sunken eyes. His hands trembled in the cold and despite the weather he wore a HARD ROCK CAFÉ HONOLULU T-shirt and a pair of unlaced leather work boots—nothing else. From the nearest house came hard rock and too-much bass and glimmers of light from heavily blocked windows.
    When we were close I pushed Claire a little behind me and,
when I was two yards away, the man stood up with his hands out to his sides: “Hey man, how much for your …”
    He started to laugh somewhat hysterically and changed whatever it was he was going to say. “You got money? I need something real bad.”
    I stopped and looked him over. “What do you need?”
    “Coke man, snap-CRACK-and fucking pop!” He smiled and I saw teeth rotted black in the almost non-existent light.
    He gestured towards the house the music was coming from and I turned slightly to look at a dilapidated brick two-storey house with an expanse of garbage-littered grass in front.
    “Hey man, never mind.” His voice was shrill, but as I turned back to the half-naked man, he lowered his voice. Then he leaned towards me before saying something that made me blush: “I got a better idea. How much for …?”
    I let him finish the question before shifting weight and kicking him squarely in the testicles. His eyes bulged out and closed and he collapsed face down slowly onto the sidewalk.
    Claire looked at me with horror and I gestured with my chin at the house. “… and that, my fine and lovely wife, I believe is a crack house.”
    She ignored me and started forward to kneel beside the man. “Why the hell did you kick him?”
    I looked around the empty streets and saw no one running so I answered. “He said something very rude.”
    “That’s no reason to …”
    I told Claire what he had said and she stood up briskly, brushing her hands. “Well. Fine. He deserved it.”
    “I felt so.” I took her arm again as we started away, and Claire accidentally-on-purpose managed to kick the semiconscious man hard in the top of the head.
    About a hundred yards farther on Claire asked me why I thought it was a crack house.
    When I answered I did it slowly, thinking my way through my opinion. “Actually we could more correctly call it a drug house, which is where one goes to buy drugs; crack or regular cocaine, crank or crystal meth, PCP or angel dust, OxyContin or hillbilly heroin and, of course, T’s and R’s, also know as Talwin and Ritalin. In other words, the heavy stuff as opposed to the lighter, fluffier drugs like ecstasy, GHB, cannabis, caffeine, and nicotine.”
    Claire made a snorting noise and I kissed her fairly hard and then went on. “Now drug houses are similar to marijuana grow operations in several ways and can be easily identified from the outside. Both suffer from short-term visits from pedestrians and cars, increased vandalism in the area, and increased noise from fights. Both also have untidy exteriors.”
    Claire leaned down to pick up a leaf which she idly examined. “I know about grow ops, the cops send us real estate workers warnings all the time to keep our eyes open.”
    I nodded. “Sure; however, grow ops generally have residents in attendance for only brief periods of time, they don’t generally allow stoned assholes to hang around. Also, grow ops have garbage like plastic sheeting, bags, and piles of dirt thrown all about outside, none of which I saw back there.”
    I made an encouraging noise and Claire kept talking. “And they have garages attached because that’s the best way to bring in the plants. And they cover the windows with paint to hide the lights because they are on all the time. And those windows end up covered with condensation, especially if