Broken Highway: A Thomas Highway Story (2 page)

Dough Boy had taken a couple of surprised
steps back and was just looking on with wide eyes and an open
mouth, his tobacco half in, half out. But Tweaker looked like she
was about to charge me.

“If you move I break his arm,” I said.

Tweaker looked at me, then to Raider-Hat,
then back at me. I could see her brain working, trying to figure
her odds. They were non-existent.

Dough Boy shook his head and mumbled “fuck
this” and hightailed it towards the front door.

“Where are you going you fat fuck?” Tweaker
yelled after him.

Perhaps hoping my attention had waned a bit,
Raider-Hat tried to shift his weight to escape but I moved along
with him. Then I put more pressure on his arm to get him to stop.
He yelped in pain.

“Don’t be stupid,” I said. “Either of
you.”

Tweaker took a deep breath and thought about
things for a moment. Then she visibly relaxed. Unlike her
boyfriend, she wasn’t as stupid as she looked.

“What happens now?” she said.

“Now you walk towards the door and I follow
along with your friend here. After we’re on the street I let him go
and you two take off. That’s it.”

“And if we don’t take off?”

“Then I’ll fuck you up and leave you on the
street to rot,” I said casually, as though reading the weather.

Tweaker glared at me for another few seconds
to save some face then nodded. “Okay. I’m going.” She turned and
headed towards the front door.

I followed with her boyfriend in front of
me. I relaxed the pressure a little but kept his arm in a
controlled position. We marched towards the door like some broken
procession. Tweaker walked outside and I released Raider-Hat and
shoved him away from me. Together they walked away, arm-in-arm,
neither one even bothering to look back. They knew when they were
beat. I turned around and headed back into the bar. It was back to
being a quiet, peaceful drinking place. Perfect.

I ordered up another shot of Jack and a
glass of Killian’s. The bartender got them for me without comment
and I proceeded to drink them. But I didn’t get any enjoyment out
of them. The confrontation had left me tired and annoyed. Mostly at
myself for becoming such a loser in the six months since I’d
sustained my injury.

I dropped a couple twenty-dollar bills on
the bar and walked out. I was done for the night. Time to get some
sleep and prepare for the many long days of drinking ahead.

2

Sometime later I woke up feeling like an
ice-pick had been stuck into my eye; after-effects of my binge from
the night before. I rubbed my temples for a few seconds then sat up
and felt around for the bottle of water I’d brought to bed with me.
It was empty. I tossed it aside and stood up. I was still wearing
my clothes from the night before, all the way down to my shoes.

I wasn’t sure how long I’d been asleep and I
didn’t particularly care. The cycle of the sun was of no concern to
me. I lived by my own set of rules and didn’t give two shits about
the whims of the world around me, natural or otherwise. The area
was completely dark but that didn’t mean anything. I lived in what
used to be a storage basement beneath a 24-hour Vietnamese
restaurant. The only door led up to the kitchen. No skylights, no
windows, no doors connected me to the outside world. It could be a
high-cloudless sky at noon and inside my cave it would still seem
like midnight.

I pulled a lighter from my pocket, flicked
it on and proceeded to light each of the 3-foot high candles that
illuminated the basement, one in each corner. The meager light
revealed the extent of my possessions—a mattress, a wooden chair
nestled up to a small desk along one side of the wall, a couple of
plastic 3-drawer sets to hold my clothes, a banquet table with some
canned food and bottles of water, and a single bookshelf filled
with old paperbacks.

Nothing else.

The basement wasn’t set up as a living space
so it had no electricity. Which meant no modern amenities; no
television, no stereo system, no computer, no stove, no
refrigerator, no washing machine. It didn’t even have a bathroom.
If I needed to crap or piss I had to hike up to the restaurant.
Which was just fine with me. I didn’t need any of that bullshit.
Distractions, all of them. None of it mattered. Not in the least.
Not anymore. Nothing did.

I pulled one of the paperbacks down from the
top shelf—Lee Child’s
ONE SHOT
—sat down at my desk and
picked up where I’d left off, about halfway through the book.

A few hours later my stomach started to
rumble. I’d eaten a can of pears already but my body needed
something more substantial. I folded the corner of the page I was
on and set the book down. Then I slipped a black sweatshirt over my
head and headed up the stairs and into the great wide open.

The stairwell emerged near the back of the
kitchen. I nodded to the cook and walked through the kitchen and
came out near the front counter. The owner, an older man named Dat
Tran, was working the front, as always. I clapped him on the
shoulder and came around to the other side like a normal
customer.

“What you want today?” Dat said, speaking in
his patented rapid-fire. “Sweet and Sour pork? Bejing Beef? Lemon
Pepper Duck?”

“I’ll take the usual.”

He waved his hand dismissively. “Orange
chicken with white rice. Always the orange chicken with white rice.
You need to try something new, Highway. You too boring.”

We went through this same thing every time I
ordered, which was pretty much every day. It was a ritual. One of
the few things that made me smile anymore.

“What can I say? I like what I like.”

“But how you know you don’t like something
else if you never try?”

“I’ve tried all those other things,” I said.
“And I don’t like them as much as the orange chicken.”

“Bah,” Dat said. “Go sit. I bring you the
food when ready.”

“Thanks, Dat.”

I headed toward my customary table, in the
far corner of the restaurant, adjacent to the hallway that led to
the back door, just in case. Old habits die hard, even with someone
like me. Oh, who was I kidding. Especially with someone like me.
Habit is all that I had left. It was all that was keeping me
functional. Without it I would have nothing.

Dat brought me my food a few minutes later.
I had barely started on it when I heard the front door chime. I
looked up and saw Dave Willis, my one and only true friend, walking
in. He took one look at me, shook his head, and headed over.

Willis was a huge man, standing 6’5” and
weighing in at around 260 pounds. We’d played baseball together and
roomed together in college. After we graduated, I went off to the
Navy and he went on to the minor leagues. After a few years he
flamed out due to injuries and opened a Security and Investigation
firm with his dad, an ex-cop, right about the same time I’d gotten
bumped out of the SEALS because of my own injury. He’d been trying
to get me to do work for him ever since.

Willis sat down on the other side of the
table, grabbed a piece of orange chicken, threw it in his mouth and
chased it with a long drink of my soda. Belligerent as hell. Just
like always. I laughed under my breath and shook my head. Willis
smiled widely. He did whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted,
heedless of society’s conventions. Always had, always would. Just
like me. Which is why we got along so well.

“How’s it hanging, brother?” he said.

“Down to my knee,” I said.

“Bullshit,” Willis said. “I’ve seen your
pecker. You’re hung like my pinkie.”

“Shit, I wish I was that big.”

“Don’t we all, my friend. Don’t we all.”

Willis smiled and clapped me on the
shoulder, nearly spilling me from my seat. I smiled back. I
couldn’t help it. Willis always had that effect on me. On everyone,
really. Unless you got on his bad side. Then you’d better just
start running.

“To what do I owe this visit?” I asked.

“I just wanted to stop by, see how you were
doing. Make sure you weren’t banged up too bad.”

“You heard about that little spat I had last
night, didn’t you?”

He shrugged and flashed me a “what can you
do?” look.

“How?”

“A little birdy sang to me early this
morning.”

“Uh-huh,” I said and dropped it. He had more
connections than most people had hairs on their body. Dude knew
everything, all the time. I didn’t know how he did it but I knew
he’d never tell me.

“But that’s not the real reason I’m here,”
he said.

“What is?”

“I need your help on a job I got.”

“I told you before, I don’t need your
charity.”

“Bullshit you don’t,” Willis said. “I’ve
been down to that cave you call a home. You need all the help you
can get, brother.”

“I’ve got all I need down there.”

“Don’t give me that crap, Highway. You’re
killing yourself down there, one day at a fucking time. It’s just a
matter of when, and you know it. One of these days I’ll come
looking for you and find nothing but a body and gun and a red stain
on the wall.”

I didn’t disagree with him. There was no
reason to. He was right. We both knew it. I just chose not to think
about it.

“Besides, it’s not charity,” Willis said.
“It’s work. The kind of stuff you used to do. The kind of stuff you
were good at.”

“Whatever it is, I’m sure you can handle
it.”

“Normally I could,” he said. “But my back’s
been acting up again. I’m due for surgery in a couple of days and
my doc said not to do anything strenuous. And this job is shaping
up to be strenuous as hell.”

“Then call it off,” I said. “Give it someone
else.”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because I said I’d do it.”

“So now tell them you can’t,” I said.

“Not going to happen, Highway. You know
that.”

I sighed, closed my eyes, and shook my head.
Freaking Willis and his misguided sense of honor. The dude had no
issues with sleeping with a different girl every night or putting
someone in the hospital for looking at him wrong, but going back on
his word? It would never happen. People were always saying their
word was their bond and all that shit but Willis was the only
person I knew who actually backed it up. Every time. Well, except
for me of course. The difference was I rarely agreed to do
anything.

But I knew I was going to agree to help
Willis out in this case, even though I didn’t want to. I just
couldn’t leave him hanging, not after all we’d been through.
Especially not for selfish reasons. Which was what they were.
Selfish reasons, and stupid ones, when you got right down to it: I
just didn’t want to care. About anything. And if I had a job to do,
a purpose, then I’d be forced to care, at least a little bit.

“Come on, Highway. Do it for me. As a favor.
I’ll do all the dirty work. I just need you to cover my ass.”

“Fine,” I said. “Anything to stop your
begging. But I’m not taking your money.”

“Who the hell said I was going to pay
you?”

I laughed. Willis did the same.

“So what’s the job?” I asked.

“We’ll get to that in a bit,” he said.
“First, we’ve got some people we need to meet.”

“People? What do you mean, people? I didn’t
agree to meet any people.”

“Trust me,” Willis said. He was grinning
like the Chesire Cat. “You’ll like these people. I promise.”

3

He was right. I liked them. A lot. Or what I
could see of them, anyhow. Which was all the important parts.

We were sitting at a table in the corner of
Shooter’s Restaurant in downtown San Diego, in the heart of the
Gaslamp District. Shooter’s was known for its waitresses—gorgeous
twenty-something females flashing lots of skin—and the vast
majority of the middle aged men sitting at the tables came in
strictly for the scenery. Despite the copious amounts of beer and
food at each table, their sly glances were proof of their true
intentions. Or dreams, more like it. Because none of these sad
sacks had any chance with the ladies at this place. Well, none
except Willis. And by extension, me.

“Tori! Come on over here girl,” Willis
bellowed to the blonde honey standing at the bar with roller-skates
on her feet in lieu of shoes.

“Hey Willis, what do you want?” Tori said in
a southern twang as she rolled up. She had on tiny jean shorts that
barely covered her ass, along with a cut-off t-shirt and no bra.
She also wore a wide, sultry smile that momentarily took my eyes of
her large, perfect breasts.

“Bring us a couple pitchers,” Willis said.
“Coors Light for me and Killian’s for my buddy. Plus we’ll take
some wings,” Willis said. He looked at me. “What? Twenty?
Thirty?”

“Whatever,” I said.

“Make it thirty,” he said.

“You want ‘em Chernobyl?” Tori asked.

“Of course,” Willis said. “You know I like
‘em as hot as I can get.”

Tori rolled her eyes towards me as if to say
“can you believe this guy?” But you could tell she wasn’t offended.
In fact, from the look on her face she appeared to enjoy it. Which
was no surprise. Willis had that effect on women. He could say the
cheesiest thing and they ate it up. I didn’t get it. Never had,
never will. It was one of his many gifts. A gift I definitely
didn’t share.

“And what about you, honey? You like ‘em
super hot too?”

“It doesn’t matter to me,” I said, playing
the straight man. “As long as they got a good personality.”

She laughed and shook her head then turned
gracefully and skated away, the bottom of her tan, tight ass
peeking out of her shorts as she pumped her legs forward.

Willis watched her until she disappeared,
then turned his attention back to me. “That chick is a freak,” he
said. “She’s got an appetite like you wouldn’t believe.”