Read Online Bad Penny by John D. Brown - Free Book Online Page A

happen, Frank. You’re going to sit tight. In a day or two, we’ll give you a call. Tell you where you can find your boy. By then we’ll be long gone. Tony will be just fine. In fact, he’ll have just the thing to write about when his teacher asks for a paper on his awesome summer vacation.”
    He wouldn’t be fine. Ed might be thinking about keeping Tony alive, but he’d also be thinking other things. Furthermore, situations like this tended to go south real quick. Especially if Tony, Mr. White Hat, gave them any idea that he just might go to the authorities once they let him out.
    “Here’s something else to think about,” Ed said. “A little bit more motivation to keep your end of the deal. Your sister Kim is a good-looking woman, Frank. I remember the pictures. I know where Kim lives. I was hoping to meet her some day. The interesting thing—Jesus has some associates who live rather close to her. In fact, he’s calling them now. If the cops come after us, well, I’m just saying.”
    “Ed, you don’t want to go there.”
    “We don’t have to go there. That’s the beauty of the whole thing. I’m not out to get you, Frank. You’d do the same if you were in my situation. It’s just a little insurance to keep Jesus from getting twitchy.”
    Ed had always taken too much interest in Frank’s affairs. Frank thought of the family photos sent to him while in prison. Photos of Kim and Tony. He thought of Tony’s letters. And Ed had always been right there.
    Ed said, “You can call the dogs off now, or you can call them off later. Either way you’re going to have to make up a story, say you were mistaken. But if you do it now, there’s less chance that two fine folks will get hurt.”
    Frank should have disarmed Ed back in the house and taken his chances then. He’d been playing it safe, playing defense. But you couldn’t do things like that with guys like Ed. Frank had no doubt Ed knew where Kim lived. If he’d been able to ferret out Frank’s unlisted location, he’d been able to ferret out hers. Frank had no doubt Jesus had people who would take her. And if they took her, there was no guarantee she’d come back. It’s one thing to kidnap an illegal who the government doesn’t know about and who wants to fly under the radar. You could let them go and trust they wouldn’t go to the authorities. Kidnap someone else, and things became a lot trickier.
    But it wasn’t going to get to that. Not even close. Ed had picked the wrong man to mess with.
    “Here’s what’s going to happen, Ed. You’re going to put Tony on the phone every hour on the hour. Each time you do, that will buy you one more hour of time that I don’t go to the police. You miss, then you’ve got the police, the FBI, the DEA, whoever I can round up. And you’ll have me. Because I kept tabs on my cellies as well.”
    “No can do. Parts of Wyoming don’t have cell service. We’ll call tonight around five, right around dinner time.”
    “Every hour, Ed, starting right now. Put him on.”
    “Big brother wants to talk,” Ed said like he’d turned his head away from the phone. “And just so you don’t get clever, I’ve got you on speaker.”
    There was a moment of silence, and then Tony came on. “Frank.”
    “You injured?”
    “No, I’m good.”
    “If Ed or that twelver he’s with touches you, they’ll answer to me. You got that?”
    “Yeah,” Tony said.
    Ed came back on loud and clear. “See? He’s still breathing. We’ll talk again at five. You sic someone on us, someone close to you goes down. It’s a simple transaction, Frank. Now, I’m missing the fine sights of this scenic sagebrush highway.”
    The called ended with a double tone.
    There was a moron at Tony’s high school who liked to harass Tony and his friends. He’d gotten a twelve on his ACT, and he’d been trying. Tony and his buds had used that to coin the term twelver. But it meant more than “stupid bully.” Tony and his dweebish friends had