“I…shit…okay, man, okay. There’s…there’s four grand in the back of the freezer, inside the waffle box.”

“And my product?”

Looking at his sniveling, red face makes me want to pull the trigger. I want him to say there’s nothing left. I want Dro to give me the signal. Pull the trigger. Shoot him. I’m itching. I look up at Dro, but he’s focusing on Baz.

“Fuck, Dro…fuck, man…I’m so fucking sorry, man. I…I have some left. I had to try it…my baby, Felix, he asked to try the new stuff.”

Through clenched teeth, Dro asks, “Where is it?”

“Bathroom…in the toilet. I put it…I put it inside a latex glove, like you showed me, Dro. It’s inside…inside the tank.”

When Dro cocks his head toward the bathroom signaling that I should go get it, I want to tell him to go get his own shit. I don’t want to be the goddamn errand boy right now. But I don’t say shit, mainly because I have enough respect for him to keep my mouth shut when it calls for it. Can’t lie, it takes me a good minute or two to withdraw the gun before slowly stepping away from Baz. With the SIG at my side, I make it to the bathroom. Removing the lid from the tank, I set it down on the sink counter before returning to look inside. Bobbing on top of ice-cold water is a tightly packed pale yellow latex glove. Much as I want to shoot Baz dead for no other reason than he annoys the fuck out of me, I have to give the idiot props on knowing how to store SKY. I exit the bathroom with the wet glove in hand, and Dro anticipates my throw and catches the glove before it falls to the floor. Next, I head to the kitchen where I find a white Whirlpool fridge taking up what little space there is. Still sporting my gun in one hand, I use the other to pull the freezer door open. There’s nothing in there aside from gray freezer-burnt meats well past their expiration date. I keep looking. The box of waffles is behind an empty, white ice cube container. Two bundles of rolled-up cash falls into my hands when I tip the box over. Just for good measure, I look back inside, thinking maybe the remaining two rolls are stuck frozen on the inside of the carton.

Nothing.

Dropping the box, I rifle through the freezer, careless of the dry, frozen meats that fall to the floor in loud clacks. Unrolling the elastic bands, I quickly count each roll as I make my way back to the living room.

I hand Dro the cash. “He’s short two grand.”

“Where’s the rest of my money, Baz?” Dro’s been pretty calm through all of this. Mr. Unflappable. He prefers putting his actions into words rather than displaying them. The number he just did on a weeping Baz is proof of that.

“Look, man…look, just give me a week…a week and I’ll pay you back. I’m good for it, Dro. You know that.”

With a grin, I say, “Let me shoot him.”

Baz’s eyes bounce from left to right, looking first at Dro and then me and then back again. Like he’s wondering if Dro will let me put a bullet in his brain. The anxiety and fear on his face gives me a rush. “I’m good for it! Please, man…come on, Droski, man…my little girl is in there. Please don’t fucking kill me, man…”

In the silence that follows, Dro uses the crowbar to leverage himself to his full height. He looks down at Baz.

I sniff the air and sniff again. “Jesus, fuck!” Taking two quick steps back from the puddle of piss stretching out from under Baz’s ass toward us, I sneer at the cocksucker. I manage to avoid it. Dro isn’t so lucky, but he’s wearing boots so I guess it’s not so bad.

He doesn’t seem to think so.

“AHHHHH! AHHHHH!” Ramming his size sixteen between Baz’s legs, Dro applies weight, crushing Baz’s dick and nuts beneath his booted foot. I almost feel sorry for the guy. Not really though.

“Two days. I’m giving you two days to get my money or I’m going to let the kid here shoot not only your brains out, but your little girl and that little faggot-ass boy toy of yours.”

Outside, Dro has me follow him to his car. He pops open the trunk, lifts the compartment where he keeps a spare and retrieves a brown paper bag.

“Do the drop-off tonight. Three grand. There and back. Route four, under the South Bend overpass. The cop is expecting you.” He hands me the bag but retains a firm hold on the opposite end. Looking at me with two black eyes that are pin needles on his face, he says, “Lose my shit again and I’ll put a bullet in your ass.”

“One fucking time…”

“One fucking time too many, kid. I’ve got too much riding on this business to have you fuck it up.” He finally lets go. “Take the back roads. Let me know when it’s done.”

We split. He leaves me in his dust while my truck wheezes down the road. It takes forty minutes to get to the South Bend overpass. I drive down the gravelly pathway that leads to the graffiti-covered bridge. Down here, it’s a hotbed of homeless people, with their makeshift tents made out of tarp and donated clothes. Grocery carts with their entire life’s contents parking against water-stained concrete walls fill the area. For a good eight months after the murder/suicide of our parents, this had been our life. Twelve years old with too much damn knowledge about sex and not enough about the world. We had to learn very quickly that charity on the streets wasn’t freely given. People always wanted something. Tit for fucking tat. I did what I had to do for both Noah and I to survive.

There wasn’t an amber alert out for us or anything like that, but we learned to evade cops and anyone else who looked like they wanted to take us in. We slept on park benches, under freeway overpasses like this one, and washed our asses in public bathrooms. I stole what we needed to eat from convenience stores. The plan was to eventually make it out west by hitchhiking. Nothing special was there, just figured anywhere was better than Trenton. But shit got derailed when I got caught stealing a few bags of chips, sodas, and some candy. That’s when we got shuffled off into the system.

Shaking my head to bring me back to focus, I shut off my headlights and drive farther down. I don’t bring any unnecessary attention to myself. Not that snitching isn’t a possibility but most of the people down here are junkies, too loaded to see straight let alone be taken seriously by anyone who came around asking questions.

Three successive flashes from a pair of headlights grabs my attention. I drive closer to find a black SUV idling next to a pile of long metal cylinders. I wait a good five minutes, because you can never be too cautious when it comes to shit like this. With the paper bag scrunched up tight to fit inside my back pocket, I get out of my truck. The last two times I came with Dro for a drop-off the cop got out of the car to meet him. I’m guessing he’s not going to give me the same courtesy as he remains in the SUV. In the back of my head I’m wondering if it’s a setup. A sting of some sort meant to catch Dro, but he sent me instead because he knew what would go down. Set me up for his fall. That’s the cynical part of me. It never lets me get too comfortable. But with my luck, this sort of shit wasn’t impossible. Either way, I wouldn’t be going down without a fight. The SIG is exactly where I want it to be, snug at the crack of my ass. I can reach for it easily enough if I need it. When I approach the SUV, the driver rolls down the window about halfway down. A slight tilt of my head allows me to see that it’s the same guy I remember.

He’s what you’d expect a cop to look like. Tall, broadly built, and stocky. He still has that ugly-as-fuck crew cut, but he’s shaved off his beard from the last time I saw him. My eyes flick to the passenger seat. There’s a girl seated there, not much I can tell about her except that she’s not wearing much in the way of clothes, except of course for the sports cap covering her long, black hair, the bill lowered to cover her face. With her jaw moving as she chews on what I can only guess is gum, she keeps her gaze focused straight ahead.