Suckers - J.A. Konrath

good on TV anymore, and kids can get bored in the 'burbs.
After spreading around a lot of Phoebe’s cash, I managed to track down the Pires’ main
hangout, owned by a guy who called himself Vlad. Word on the street, Vlad was thirtysomething,
balding and overweight, and wore contact lenses that made his eyes look bloodshot.
Just the kind of daddy-figure teenage girls found irresistible.
I was in the middle of breaking into Casa de Vlad when sauce-boy wandered over,
witnessing my felony-in-progress.
"Look." He tried to smile, but it looked funny with my gun on his cheek. "This is really none
of my business, and I really have to get home while the pasta is still al dente or I’ll be sleeping
on the sofa for a week. And our sofa has these big, pointy springs that stick out of the cushions
that feel like fish hooks."
"You think I’m an idiot?"
"Actually—"
I gave him another love tap with the butt of my Magnum.
"Here’s the deal, sofa-man. I have to get into this house and grab someone. This someone
may not want to go with me, and she may have some friends who don’t want to see her go. So
this is going to be complicated enough without having to worry about the police showing up in
three minutes because your pansy sofa-ass went whining to them."
"I won’t call the police. The police and I don’t have a very good relationship. I kind of
annoy them. I—"
I tapped him on the head again. "I wasn’t finished."
"Can you please stop—"
Tap. "You’re still talking."
He looked at me and opened his mouth to say something, but thought better of it.
I hit him anyway.
"But I didn’t—"
"You just did." Tap.
I may have tapped him too hard, because he went from his knees onto his ass.
"The thing is, Saucey, much as I’m just dying inside to trust you, it’s probably better if I
don’t. Do you have ten feet of clothesline on you?"
He didn’t say anything, which I took to be a no.
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