Read Online Hard Play by Kurt Douglas - Free Book Online Page A

top. Frank noticed the faint lines of her areolas underneath the thin white shirt—she wasn’t wearing a bra.
    “First-time patient?” he heard a voice call down from above the cleavage.
    “Yeah,” Frank replied as he fished his wallet from his slacks.
    Flipping it open, he offered his info through the window.
    “Fill this out,” the breasts said as they lowered, handing Frank a clipboard and allowing him a look at the face attached.
    She hung half out the window with her elbows perched on the ledge as she waited for him to fill out the paperwork.
    She was your typical bud shop girl. Her hair, brown roots that faded into streaks, reaching down toward the bleached blonde strands at the end. Pink sclera surrounded her dark-brown button eyes, and her plump lips, turned upward in a smile, were pinched tight around a smoldering joint.
    “Don’t worry about your doctor’s info,” she interrupted Frank’s scribbling. “That’s more of a formality.”
    With that, he was finished and handed the clipboard back to her along with his doctor’s recommendation. She took the paperwork and slid the window shut, only her silhouette visible through the frosted glass.
    “Come on in,” she said, her voice muffled.
    Then a buzzer sounded. Frank took a few steps to his right and swung open the large steel door. Stepping into a makeshift cage of wrought-iron security gates, his sinuses were washed in the dank smell of marijuana. Before he could bask in the sweet scent, a second buzzer sounded and Frank released himself from the cage with a twist of the knob, entering the bud shop floor.
    Before him, a glass case lit up by neon lights displayed the shop’s selection of goods: a row of jars filled with varying shades of green nuglets, a shelf of pipes, rolling papers and other smoking accessories, and, on the bottom row, the edibles—brownies, cookies, crackers, even Jolly Ranchers and suckers. Behind the display case a young man with round cheeks, deep-set eyes and a bald head stood between Frank and the back door. His pearly white smile sparkled above a black T-shirt sporting the collective’s logo; a big neon-green bud leaf. Frank could hear the television blaring behind the back door. A daytime talk-show about the dangers of diabetes, loud enough to screech through the heavy door, but not loud enough to hide the heated argument that was going on behind it.
    “Hey, Mr. Black,” the young man behind the counter said, his volume attempting to match that of the voices behind him. “Because you’re a veteran, you don’t even have to make a donation today and you’ll still get the first-time patient deal. Score, right?”
    The young man chuckled as he passed Frank’s paperwork across the counter. His smile sparkled. Frank pocketed the papers. He said nothing.
    Frank leaned against the case, looking down into its contents as he listened to the voices in the backroom. While Frank stared, the young man began filling a white prescription bag with items from the middle row; a plastic grinder, a joint, some cellulose papers and a cheap plastic lighter.
    Folding the bag shut, he looked at Frank and asked with the pep of a seasoned salesman, “What can I get you?”
    Turning his eyes upward from the glass shelf, Frank said in a stone-cold voice, “Chad Campbell.”
    The name caught the young man off guard. He looked over his shoulder at the backdoor then back to Frank.
    “He’s not here right now.”
    “Mm-hmm,” Frank mumbled.
    With a step to his left and a quick leap forward, Frank burst through into the back room.
    “Hey man! You can’t go back there,” the young man called out, reaching for Frank’s arm.
    But it was too late. Frank was too fast. He was already two steps through the door before the young stoner reacted.
    Frank noticed the ill regard for fire safety codes as he looked around the closet-sized room, inspecting the faces of the dozen or so men sitting in a circle of chairs in the center. Each of them,