Riven - Jerry B. Jenkins [112]
“You’re buying cookies from some guy for an envelope full of cash.”
Even Brady had to laugh. “Just tell me you’ll do it, Peter.”
“I will, but if this blows up in my face—”
“We can both say honestly that you were just doing what I told you and that you had no idea what was going down. You don’t, do you?”
“I have a pretty good idea.”
“But you don’t know.”
“No, I don’t.”
As Brady worked that day, he couldn’t stop thinking about having run into Agatha at the convenience store that morning. She had really let herself go. She had walked her five-year-old to the free day care bus stop and had her two younger ones in tow. Without makeup and under a pink baseball cap, she looked twenty years older.
“Jim’s on the road overnight,” she whispered. “In case you wanted to drop by, I mean.”
Brady couldn’t imagine anything he’d less rather do.
As he watched her leave the store in her too-short shorts, especially for a big girl, and her flip-flops—even on a chilly autumn morning—he saw his future. The Touhy Trailer Park was like a jail term, and he feared he was a lifer.
But today Brady’s ship would come in. There would be enough dope in that afternoon’s delivery to set him up as a real player. He could quit this crushing job, get his own car, even his own place. He hated dragging Petey into the middle of it, but it would be only this one time.
Adamsville
“Let’s see what the TV is saying about this,” Thomas said, flipping on the set.
Just as he did, a flash of lightning killed the power and a horrific clap of thunder shook the house.
“Oh no,” Grace said.
“Temporary,” Thomas said. “Always is.”
“Find some candles. They’re going to think we changed our minds and aren’t even here.”
Thomas laughed. “You don’t think they’ll see that the whole area is affected?”
He found the flashlight and put candles in the kitchen, the living room, and on the front windowsill.
Addison
The first flash of lightning sent the landscaping crew racing for the truck. The last two there had to ride in the bed—no fun once the rain began—but Brady didn’t mind. The only thing he didn’t like was that he was an hourly worker, and cutting out early meant less pay. Another reason to get on with his other career.
On the other hand, today was payday, so his check would be waiting at the office. He always splurged on payday, only this time he hadn’t even decided how yet. With the profit he could make on the delivery Peter was accepting for him, right about then as a matter of fact, he could party all the time.
About a mile from the office the rain turned to hail, and Brady and his cohort rapped on the window of the cab of the pickup. The driver and the other two workers at first laughed and trash-talked, but finally the truck pulled over and the two in the back squeezed inside.
Five dirty yard workers crammed into a truck made it almost impossible to drive, and of course there ensued endless laughing and jabbing and swearing.
When they finally rolled into the parking lot of the office, however, no one was getting out. The tiny hail pellets had been growing steadily larger, and now they rained like golf balls, drilling deep dents in the hood and imprisoning the laborers.
Suddenly a chunk of ice as big as a lemon shattered the windshield. The five men ducked and tried to elude the freezing gusts blasting through the truck. When the wind rocked the rig and threatened to roll it over, somebody said, “We gotta get out!” and they opened both doors and dashed for the office.
Brady covered his head, taking fierce, stinging blows to his hands until he got inside. As they listened on the radio and watched from the window, the truck was lifted off the ground and rolled up onto its side, then slammed back down. In the distance, high-tension poles swayed and wires snapped, shooting showers of sparks across the highway.
The lights went out, but Brady could still see the havoc as the pea green sky roiled. A generator kicked in and the radio came back on, filled with news of twisters in the area.
Brady ran to the back and looked out into the employee