Read Online Foreclosure: A Novel by S.D. Thames - Free Book Online

everything and lay flat and relaxed on the cool pavement. Don’t fight it , he told himself. Just go with it.
    “So, back to the question,” Frank continued. “Why should I hire you?”
    “Because I’m a fighter. And a winner.” David’s mouth was drying up like a forgotten stream in the Old West.
    “Wow, I’m impressed. Aren’t you impressed, Robbie? He sounds tough.”
    “He does sound tough, Frank.” Robbie coughed again.
    “So what have you won?” Frank asked, his left eye still off kilter.
    “I just won a jury trial, a residential foreclosure on a million-dollar home.” David’s mouth was too dry to speak complete sentences. He smacked his lips and tried to moisten his mouth.
    “I sure hope you don’t get cotton mouth like that in court,” Frank said. “Why don’t you give him something to drink, Robbie. Say, why don’t you piss in his mouth? He’d never know what hit him.”
    David jerked forward and covered his mouth, struggling to balance himself upright.
    Frank wailed with laughter. “We’re not going to piss on you, tough guy.” He pulled a cigarette and lit it. “But in all seriousness, I don’t need no two-bit foreclosure attorney. You guys are a dime a dozen.”
    “You don’t know what you’re talking about, Frank.”
    “Is that so? You’re telling me I don’t know what I’m talking about?”
    David managed to push himself forward enough to stay facing Frank. “You obviously have a need for a new lawyer, or you wouldn’t have sent Robbie to pick me up.”
    “Maybe I was just desperate for some entertainment, which you’ve sure as hell been good for.”
    Frank started to laugh, but David cut it off. “No, I think you’re desperate. And you know after your last attorneys dropped you like that, you’ll have a hard time finding competent counsel to step in and do what you need done. That’s why you picked me up, Frank. You know I’m the one.”
    “And what the hell makes you think you’re the one, asshole?”
    “’Cause I know you, Frank. I know what you need.”
    “What the fuck you think you know about me, you little piece of shit?” Frank grabbed David’s shoulders, hoisted him from the ground, and dropped him against the floor. “You ever make something with your hands?” Frank looked down at his calloused paws. “I’d still be building if making money wasn’t so damn easy.” He glared at David. “You ever built something with your hands, I said?” He grabbed David’s hands and studied them. “Shit, Katherine has tougher hands than you.” He smacked David playfully on the cheek.
    “I’m tough, Frank. My hands are soft, but I’m tough.”
    “Then prove it,” Frank said. He waved Robbie over. “What do you say, Mr. Tough-Guy Lawyer?”
    “Say to what?” David asked.
    “You wanna throw blows with my Robbie?”
    “Are you serious?”
    Frank picked David up off the patio. He leaned him against the sliding door and got in his face. “I’m always serious. And here’s the rules: you two trade punches as long as you can stand it. And you have to entertain me. That simple.”
    Robbie stepped in front of David. “You go first.”
    David shook his head.
    “Then I will.” Robbie flung a jab at David’s chest, not hard enough to hurt, but with just enough force to let him know this was for real.
    David pushed himself off the door and responded with a similar lob on Robbie’s chest.
    Then Robbie hit him harder.
    David absorbed the blow and found himself grinning madly. He felt a rush of adrenaline as a flicker of fear flashed in Robbie’s eyes. He figured the Swede mistook him for some softy who spent his weekends growing up chasing Mom and Dad on the golf course. The adrenaline surged as he recalled the pain and anger he felt the last time he got his ass beat on the cold, hard streets of Newark. Then a painful memory followed: after that last ass beating, one of the last things his dad taught him before he died was how to defend himself. He