B009XDDVN8 EBOK by William Lashner Page B

if he could maybe make sure the quality was better than the last batch of crap he sold us.”
    “He took your complaining well, I’m sure,” said Ben.
    “Let’s just say it was nothing I could repeat in polite company.”
    “When are you ever in polite company?”
    “And, come to think of it, J.J., in the middle of his diatribe, your name came up.”
    “Me?”
    “Yeah, you. If we weren’t saddled with your sorry ass, bub, we’d be getting his prime stuff.”
    “So you’re the one killing my buzz, J.J.,” said Ben, laughing. “Maybe I should be hanging out with the marching band. They always get killer weed.”
    “I’m telling you guys,” said Augie, “Tony’s been dicking us for years. But I happen to know where he’s got some sweet Mexican buds stashed away. Richie was bragging about a shipment that came in, saying he saw a bag as big as a basketball in Tony’s closet.”
    “Diffendale’s a dick,” I said.
    “True, but that doesn’t mean he’s lying. And it’s just sitting there while Tony sells his trash to us at a premium. Jesus, there’s more dust here than beneath my bed.”
    “Quit the whining and spark it up, Sparky,” said Ben. “You’re giving me a headache.”
    “I think we should go in and get it,” said Augie.
    “Get what?”
    “His good stuff.”
    “Don’t be wacked,” said Ben.
    “He owes us,” said Augie. “We’ll be in and out before anyone knows anything happened, and we’ll only take what we’re owed. With all he’s got, Tony will never miss it, and even if he does he won’t know who did it.”
    “He’ll know,” said Ben.
    “But he won’t be able to prove it.”
    “He doesn’t need to prove it. If his brother even thinks we broke into his house, our asses are not our own anymore. We’re not talking a little beating here, Augie, we’re talking death. Not metaphorical death, real death. Fork-in-the-throat death. Devil-Rams-pounding-our-heads-into-the-cement-stoop death. No way in hell is J.J. or me going in there.”
    “You two can stay outside and be lookouts.”
    “You’re an idiot,” said Ben.
    “How long have you been going through menopause?”
    “Haven’t we learned by now not to mess with the Grubbinses? How’s your dog doing, J.J?”
    “Still dead,” I said.
    “Leave it alone, Augie,” said Ben. “A couple of stems is not worth getting killed over.”
    “Maybe you’re right.”
    “Of course I’m right. Only a total loser idiot would think of breaking into the Grubbins house.”
    “What do you say, J.J.?” said Augie.
    “I’m in,” I said, as quick as that.

    We waited like astrologists for the stars to align, when suddenly they did. Derek roared off from the house with three other Devil Rams, their saddlebags full and their sleeping bags cinched behind their seats. They were headed for a jamboree in Virginia, we heard, or maybe North Carolina, but someplace south and far away. And then a day later Tony went off with his girlfriend, Denise, and his factotum, Richie Diffendale, to a party in Hatboro that was supposed to last all night. A half hour after Tony’s car left the house, enough time to be sure he hadn’t forgotten his bong, and after a quick inhale of courage, Augie and I slithered through a loose window and landed in the pitch black of the Grubbins kitchen.
    “We’re in,” I said into my walkie-talkie, one of three I had received from my mother for my fourteenth birthday and that, surprisingly, still worked. “Over.”
    “Over what?”
said Ben through a cloud of static. Ben had wanted nothing to do with the whole enterprise and agreed to be our lookout only after Augie convinced him that if we got caught he’d be blamed for it anyway.
    “Just
over
, Mr. B.—it’s what you say.”
    “No names, remember? Jesus Christ. Just get it done and get the hell out of there.”
    “Over?”
    “What?”
    “You have to say it at the end. Over.”
    “You’re making my head hurt.”
    “Say it.”
    “Go to