Read Only Child for Free Online

mad violent. They'd load up their nines and come looking to hose you down, give you a kiss for the diss, see?"

I did. And started making new lists.
    • • •
    W hat I found out was . . . I'd been away too long. I sniffed around the edges where I used to do work. Sent word through third parties to people who dealt in stuff I used to move, checked the usual drops. . . .

But no matter where I looked, the arteries were all clogged with amateurs.

There's no new crimes, only new criminals. And I didn't know any of them.

Oh, sure, there were little jobs I could pull. Minor stings where I wouldn't need an active crew, just a little help with front. Low-risk, low-return.

That's all I wanted to do, once. Live small. Stay off the radar. I could never be a citizen, but I didn't want to be a convict again, either.

Thing is, only citizens have 401(k)s. When I was coming up, I'd always hear the crime guys I admired talking about the "retirement score." That one big job they could live off forever.

When you're young, that kind of thing's just another convict fantasy. One of the Big Three— money, sex, and revenge.

When you've put on some mileage, when you've been some places and done some things, you realize that the Big Three is down to One. Money. That key works all of the locks.

And by the time you get old enough, close enough to that time when any trip back Inside amounts to a life sentence, you know what "blood money" really means. This is an ugly country to be poor in. Worse if you're sick. And if you're old, you can ratchet that up a few notches more.

I knew all that. I was schooled by the best. I'd been putting money aside from every score almost since I started. But when I had to disappear, most of it got eaten up during the hunt. And I didn't have another twenty years to rebuild my stake.

When I was a young man, rep was all a lot of us had. Heart. We tattooed it on our souls, a prayer never to be forgotten. Paying with our lives for the sacramental wine poured into an "X" on callous City concrete by those who had watched us go. Whenever his brothers pooled their cash for a bottle of T-bird, the man who had proved his heart in battle always got the first taste.

I'd lost that need for a two-minute tombstone a long time ago. The reason I'd rather go out quick than rot to death on Welfare hasn't got anything to do with pride. Some pain is easier to manage, that's all.
    • • •
    T his isn't Willie Sutton's world anymore. Banks aren't where the money is— at least, not money you can get at in a quick-hit robbery. Casinos and racetracks have tons of untraceable cash. But there's no way to ease it out, and it would take a military assault to take it by force. Kidnappings always come unglued at the exchange. Blackmail's hit-or-miss; mostly miss. Jewelry's easier, but it has to pass through too many hands before it turns into cash, and each one cuts a slice off the loaf.

The whisper-stream is always vibrating with rumors of open contracts. A Central American druglord is offering millions for any crew that can break him out of a federal pen. A collector is offering more than that for a certain painting under museum guard. Some shadowy zillionaire has a huge bounty out on whoever the hate-flavor of the moment is.

There's always enough shreds of truth clinging to stories like that to make some retardate act on faith. Ask James Earl Ray.

The surest proof that Ray acted alone is that nobody ever ratted him out. Ask the church bombers. Or McVeigh.

But I wouldn't go there. I've been to that school. Paid what the tuition cost.

So I knew who to ask.
    • • •
    "S nakeheads," Mama said.

"Is there really that much in it?" I asked her.

"Always money. Just not . . ." she said, snapping her fingers to say "immediately."

"I don't understand."

"Snakeheads like farmer with cows, okay? Cow meat worth not much; cow milk, very good. Get all over again, every day, understand?"

"The people they bring