Rough Men by Aric Davis Page B

if he was the one that aced your boy, or if he even knew that was part of the plan when it happened. Maybe you both have forgotten, but things can change on a job.”
    “Like getting sucked off by a sixteen-year-old?” Isaac said.
    The little glass room took on a different hum then. They all took turns looking at each other. Will imagined blood splattering the glass. Buckets of it.
    Isaac spoke first, his voice hoarse and quiet, like he couldn’t quite believe he’d blurted that out. “C’mon, Will,” he said, “let’s get out of here before we can’t.”
    “That,” said Jason, smoke flowing from his nostrils, “is what they call ‘one.’ You just got your all-time fill of taking digs at me. You do it again, I will fucking beat you to death, right here in front of all of these nice people. I can’t see any of them stopping me or stopping me leaving when I’m done. I’ll be back in my shop with some pal in my chair in fifteen minutes, and if anybody asks, I’ll have been there all evening.”
    “We’re fine, Jason,” said Will. “What’s the plan?”
    Jason drew in another long, slow lungful of smoke, still looking at Isaac like he was cataloging the various abuses he would be visiting upon him. Then he exhaled and said, “I’m going to finish my smoke, then we’re going to go in, finish our beers, and Isaac is going to settle our tabs.” He turned a sweet smile on Isaac. “Don’t say shit, brother. Remember, you already got your one.” To both of them, he said, “After that, we’re going to go to Mumbo’s in whatever car you two took here, and we’re going to ask him some questions. His answers will tell us what to do next.”
    “You mean, where to go?”
    “No, to decide if he’s got anything to tell us first or if we just kill him right away.”

I saac drove, Will sat next to him, and Jason was crammed into the backseat. Will had offered his seat up front to Jason, but he’d just smiled and declined. Now, with an almost certainly armed man with a black past sitting behind him, Will understood the decision. Not that he could imagine why Jason would have any reason to fear them. It was probably just habit, like how old west gunslingers never sat with their backs to a doorway.
    They were silent in the car, with Jason giving occasional directions. He had them staying off the highway and moving into the southwest side of the city, far from the robbery, at least as far as Grand Rapids was concerned, but really only about a twenty-minute car ride.
    Jason directed them onto a side street off of Ivanrest, which led them to the type of unidentifiable neighborhood that littered Kent County. Only the cars—half fancy, half rolling rust—were proof that it had been turned from a thriving suburb to a near ghetto of foreclosed-upon houses turned to rental properties.
    “Stop here,” said Jason, and Isaac did. Jason handed the brothers leather gloves and put on a pair himself. Will exited the car first, with Jason after him. After a moment, Isaac followed. Jason walked to the back of the car, and Will watched him grab a handful of wet snow and smash it onto Isaac’s license plate. When he was finished, Jason walked from the car and nodded toward a house.
    “That one,” he said; it was a nondescript house with white aluminum siding. The house could have used some work butwasn’t nearly as bad off as some of the other ones in the neighborhood. There was an old Ford truck parked in the driveway. Will had only a fleeting moment to wonder just how sure Jason was about this being the right house before he was following his friend across the street, with Isaac at his heels. Jason had a pistol in his gloved hand, not the revolver from the tattoo shop, some sort of smaller automatic that Will didn’t recognize.
    The night was pitch-black, the only light coming from houses and the moon, and the snow picked up all of it, casting it in odd reflections. There were the sounds of their feet, automobiles