The Devil's Right Hand - J. D. Rhoades [70]
“You might wanna go easy on them things,” Billy Ray said. He was sprawled in an oversized recliner across the room. “They’s supposed to be addictive.”
Raymond didn’t answer. He ran his fingers across his side, feeling the expanse of bandages wrapped around his torso beneath his shirt. The bleeding had stopped, but the wound still felt like someone was holding a red-hot poker into his flesh. He was afraid it might be getting infected. Soon, though, it wouldn’t matter.
The Chevy pulled up in the gravel parking lot before the front door. Raymond went to the door and opened it. He was shocked to see that the person getting out on the passenger side was Paco Suarez. Geronimo got out of the driver’s side. Two goons he didn’t know exited the rear passenger doors. Raymond relaxed slightly with the knowledge that if Suarez himself was here, it was unlikely that they had come to kill him. Suarez was also careful. He always arranged to be miles away from any bloodshed.
Raymond and Suarez embraced as Suarez reached the front door. The Latin custom had always made Raymond slightly uncomfortable, but there was no actual warmth in the gesture. It was a formality, nothing more. Suarez stepped back and looked at Raymond. He was a small man, with a narrow, bony face and the merciless eyes of a bird of prey.
“You don’t look well, my friend,” Suarez said. “You look like you need a doctor.” His accent was barely noticeable. Suarez had received most of his education in the U.S., first in the schools and universities and then courtesy of the U.S. Army in the days when they weren’t picky about who received advanced “anti-insurgency” training.
“I’m fine,” Raymond said. “Healing, anyway.” He stepped back and motioned Suarez through the door. Suarez stepped back and let Geronimo and the other two goons precede him. Raymond followed.
Suarez sat on the couch in the living room, Geronimo on his left. The two other men stood flanking the door. Billy Ray got up and gave Raymond the recliner.
“I have your assurance that this place is safe?” Suarez said. “You have attracted a great deal of attention to yourself.”
“It’s safe,” Raymond said. “Ain’t many people that know about it.”
Suarez nodded his approval of this. “And the local police, I know, are still firmly in your hip pocket.” He leaned forward. “Or are they? You are now a hunted man. Can you still do business?”
Raymond nodded. “My network’s still together. You deliver a shipment to the usual place, and we’ll move it. Guaranteed.”
Suarez looked doubtful. “What of your other, ah, legal problems?”
Raymond leaned forward. “There was only a couple witnesses to what happened at that house. The main one I’m worried about is DeWayne Puryear. He’s one of the men who shot my daddy.”
Suarez bowed his head and raised a hand in sympathy. “A senseless tragedy. Please accept my condolences,” he said. His face hardened. “Had you let us know about this,” he said, “We could have taken steps ourselves.”
“He was my daddy,” Raymond said. “The job was mine to do.”
Geronimo spoke up for the first time. “But now you ask for our help.”
Raymond turned to him. Geronimo was taller than Suarez, and broader, with a fleshy frame and a round baby face. People who looked at him tended to think him soft or foolish. He was neither. Next to Suarez, Geronimo was the most dangerous man Raymond had ever met.