Dead Cold Mysteries Box Set #2: Books 5-8 (A Dead Cold Box Set) Blake Banner (read out loud books txt) 📖

everybody up here is badass, except the refugees from the city, like me. They called him Coy and it stuck, so now he has to live with it. Personally I call him Coyote, just to be on the safe side, know what I’m saying?”

I made scared eyes and said, “OK.”

He walked away and started serving other customers. Dehan swigged from her bottle. “We need to make a move.”

I nodded and smiled like she’d said something amusing. “I know. But give it a while. If we’re too quick it will look suspicious.”

We talked about nothing much through Tequila Sunrise and Desperado and finished our beers. I called Saul over.

“Let’s have another couple of beers, Saul. Will you have one too?”

“Thank you kindly!”

He went to get them and when he returned, I said, “Listen, you been here long?”

“Coming up for ten years.”

“Maybe you can give us some advice.”

“If I can, I will. Always happy to help. Cheers!”

We knocked bottles and drank. I sighed through my teeth and said, “We’re looking to do a bit of business.”

He raised an eyebrow. He knew what was coming, but he asked anyway. “What kind of business?”

I spread my hands and smiled on the right side of my face, acknowledging it was obvious. “Weed is legal up here but, as I am sure you know, it’s not back in New York. So if I sell it back there I can ask a good price…”

“You want to know if there is a cannabis farmer who is willing to sell you in bulk so you can sell it in the city.”

I shrugged like it wasn’t a big deal. “You know—it’s one of the options we’re looking at.”

He gave me a wink. “Let me have a word with Sly. I don’t get involved in that shit. I keep my nose clean. But I know they have done that in the past. Give me a minute. Just don’t get me involved.”

I thanked him and he went away. Dehan took a pull from her bottle. “So Sly and El Coyote are farmers. But they sure as hell aren’t farming for the pharmaceutical industry. They are supplying the states where dope is still illegal, and they can make top dollar on an ounce.” She looked worried. “You ever smoked dope, Stone?”

I shrugged. “Couple of times at college. I thought it was overrated. Why?” She gave me a look that was hard to interpret. Then it dawned on me. “You never did.” She shook her head. “And you think we’re going to have to tonight.” She nodded.

I looked over at Saul speaking in Sly’s ear. Coy and a couple of the Angels glanced over at us. I was beginning to think this was a bad idea and said so to Dehan. She made a ‘maybe’ face. “It’s too late now, anyway. We’ll have to talk to them.”

“We can’t get stoned. It’s crazy.”

“What’s it like? Is it like getting drunk?”

I closed my eyes. A voice in my head said we should leave. Now. I said, “Not really. I thought it was kind of boring. It hits you suddenly. Everything seems real funny or real deep. Sometimes you lose your inhibitions. It can be an aphrodisiac. This is really a bad idea, Dehan, we should go.”

She gave me a weird kind of blank grin that was impossible to interpret and Saul approached us behind the bar.

“You’re in luck. He wants you to join him for a drink. He seems to be interested. If he offers you a smoke, accept. It’s damn good weed, and he’s easily offended.”

I grinned at him. “Don’t worry. We’ll accept! Say, bring us over a bottle of good tequila, will you? As a goodwill gesture.”

He winked. “That’s nice. He’ll like that.”

As we made to move to Sly’s table I put my hand on Dehan’s shoulder and reached for my phone. I made like I was answering a call. She watched me. As I hung up I set the alarm for twenty minutes and put it back in my pocket.

“OK, Carmen. Into the jaws of the coyote. Let’s go.”

Twelve

There were six of them around the table: Sly in the corner with Coy on his right, and a chorus of four Angels around him. I put a smile of invincible middle-class naivety on my face and we walked over at the same time as Saul arrived with a tray of tequila and eight glasses. We’d reached Hotel California on the Eagles’ Greatest Hits.

“Good evening,”

I smiled around the table as Saul set down the bottle and the glasses with a saucer of lemon slices and a salt cellar. They all looked at me without expression, and then at Dehan with more approval. Saul said to Sly, “Bottle of tequila, compliments of John here, Sly.”

Sly cocked his head and smiled. “That is a nice gesture you had there, John. But before I invite you to sit at my table and join me and my family here,” he made a broad, elegant gesture around the table, “let me tell you something that I have learned in life. I have learned that no man ever gives anything to another man unless he wants something in return. Would you say that is true, John?”

I allowed my smile to turn from naïve to rueful. “Well, it is certainly true in my case, Sly.”

He gave a high-pitched, wheezing laugh that was chock-full of the pleasure of being right. “Well, at least you is honest, my man. As you might perceive, I am blind, but that don’t mean I don’t see, does it now?”

“Clearly not.”

“Sit down, you and your friend, who I am told is hot, and tell me what it is you want from me. And I shall tell you whether I shall grant it to you, or send you on your