I Kill Monsters: Fury (Book 1) by Tony Monchinski

your shoulders
squeezin’ your head, Mojo? Didn’t you hear anything I just said to
you? Man kept his mouth closed. Man went away.”
    “Yeah, I heard you, Blind.”
    The old man shook his head. “You here asking
me about one of your own, eh? Ain’t that somethin’. Maybe you
better ask Gossitch himself.”
    “Yeah. Guess I will. You got anything for
me?”
    “Come on in back a second, Mojo. Keisha!”
    The woman looked up at her father. When she
saw Boone a look not too far from disgust crossed her face.
    “I be back in a minute, honey.”
    Blind lifted part of the counter-top and
stepped out from behind the counter. He navigated the aisles of his
store without a cane.
    “Hey, Blind,” remarked Boone as he followed.
“I don’t think your daughter likes me.”
    “She a smart one that girl.”

 
14.
10:12 A.M.
     
    “Now, this is some of that good Peruvian
shit…” Blind was saying of an open kilo bag of cocaine on the table
in front of them. “Only been stepped on once. Have a taste.”
    Boone reached into the bag with a key and
scooped up a small mound of the powder. He pinched one nostril shut
with a thumb and inhaled the powder, licking the key. It hit him
immediately. Instant heightened perception. Like seeing in 3-D.
    “Yeah, this shit is nice.” He licked his
gums.
    “How much you want? Eightball?”
    “No, better make it a quarter ounce.”
    “What—you got a party coming up or
somethin’?”
    “You know me, Blind. My whole fuckin’ life is
a party.”
    “I know ye-yo, my man, and this here is a
young man’s drug. You best watch yourself with this shit—”
    “You a drug dealer or what?”
    The old man smiled. “When I think I need to,
I be first to cut you off. You a grown boy, Boone. Weigh it out
yourself.”
    There was a digital scale on the table and
baggies of various sizes. Boone scooped from the key on the table
and filled a bag, measuring it. The old man sat back, humming, and
didn’t seem concerned that Boone would cheat him by taking more
than the agreed upon weight. Boone never would.
    “You still carrying that Dirty Harry
bullshit?” the old man asked as Boone finished up.
    Boone nodded.
    “Why don’t you take a look at this?”
    He pushed a blue gun case across the table to
Boone. When Boone opened it and hefted the revolver inside he
whistled.
    “Nice.”
    “That’s a Ruger Speed-Six. Three fifty seven.
Double action.”
    “Pocket pistol,” noted Boone, somewhat sour.
“I ain’t lookin’ to trade down.”
    “Granted, it don’t carry the look of
authority o’ that forty-four weighin’ you down, but you can conceal
it easier.”
    “Can it punch through an engine block?”
    “No, but it’ll knock most men and all the
other shit you might meet out there off they feet. Why, you
expectin’ ta start a beef with a Mack Truck?”
    “How much?”
    “I can let you have it for ten yards.”
    “A big one, huh?”
    “That gun’s clean, Mojo. You know how I
work.”
    “Yeah, I know how you work, Blind. You bought
this wholesale off Hephy. Let me have it retail, right?”
    “You want to save yourself a few dollars, go
on an’ see the armorer himself, Mojo.”
    “I’ll pay your daughter out front,
right?”
    “You got it. Need any shells?”
    “Nah, I got some three fifty sevens and
thirty eights somewhere. Hey, when’s that Jintropin coming in?”
    “Waitin’ to hear from my connect down in
China Town. Should be any day. Now that’s a drug you gotta look out
for.”
    “You sellin’ me cocaine and you can say
that?”
    “Mojo, GH is what killed Alzado.”
    “Maybe,” nodded Boone. “But back then they
were raiding cadavers for the shit, Blind. Today everything’s
synthetic. Won’t cause no mad cow.”
    “Jacob Creutzfeld”
    “Don’t know him,” said Boone. “But I think
his name is Creutzfeld-Jacob.”
    “You’s funnier than you look, Mojo.”
    “That’s what they tell me.”
    “Seriously though, you don’t want to go
overboard with