Deal Gone Bad - A Thriller (Frank Morrison Thriller Series Book 1) by Tony Wiley

maybe two? That’s good
money but nowhere near what we were going to make three years ago.”
    He paused for a beat, then
added, “Personally, I would never embarrass myself with such a slimy deal.”
    Another flash passed
through Harris’s eyes. But once again he managed to keep a tight lid on his
facial expression.
    You’re the one behind
this, Morrison
thought. What you wonder about Junior is if he’s the one who tipped off Sheriff
Sanford, not if he put that setup in place, because you know you did .
    Morrison remained silent, forcing
Harris to utter the next words. The businessman was behind that deal, but he
couldn’t admit it to him, could he? That would be way too embarrassing, admitting
responsibility for a ramshackle operation, and a failure on top of that.
Morrison knew Harris would have to chip in and denigrate the deal. And of
course denigrate himself in the process just to save face.
    Harris waved his hand and said,
“Yeah, of course, that’s a rotten deal. That’s why I thought Junior might have
something to do with it, you know.”
    Then he took another sip
of bourbon.
    Morrison flashed an inner
smile. “I can tell you for sure he’s got nothing to do with it,” he said. Then
he decided to rib him some more. In a lighthearted way, he added, “Hell, you
wouldn’t have anything to do with it, would you?”
    Harris made a face. “Are
you crazy? I’m retired from that life.”
    Morrison let out a short burst
of laughter. “You’re gonna have to explain this one to me. You, retired? That’s
why you send some poor jerk to trail Mike’s crew?”
    Harris cracked a wide
smile and chuckled. “OK, maybe that wasn’t my best one,” he said. “I’m not
retired yet. But I’m winding down, that’s for damn sure. Seeing you do all that
time got me thinking, you know.”
    They paused for a beat.
Then Harris said, “And you? You wouldn’t have anything to do with this, right?”
    “You overestimate me,” Morrison
said. “I just got out yesterday.”
    “I’m not talking about
setting this deal up. I know you wouldn’t have anyway. But blowing the whistle
on it. You seemed pretty hyped up about it.”
    “Again,” Morrison said, “you
overestimate me. I just got out yesterday.”
    Harris waved his hand. “I
know, I know,” he said. ”Just asking.”
    Morrison took another sip
of water and looked at his old partner. He believed him when he said he was
winding down. Only somebody looking for easy money and not willing to put on
too much effort would be setting up such a basic ATM-skimming operation. It
wouldn’t come from a sharp professional at the top of his game, looking to
maximize his profit. But for a man of Harris’s means, the crumbling of such a
small deal shouldn’t bother him that much. His livelihood didn’t depend on it. If
he had decided to put a tail on Mike’s crew, there must have been another
reason. Morrison looked at the wily old bastard again. He was enjoying his
glass of bourbon, an air of quiet contentment oozing from his relaxed, friendly
mustachioed face. Morrison thought he knew why. “It’s not last night’s ATM
skimming thing that got under your skin, right? It’s the collapse of our big
deal three years ago that you’re still not over with. That’s what’s rattling
your cage.”
    Harris shrugged.
    “We were supposed to make
a killing with it. Aren’t you pissed that it all went sour?”
    “I am,” Morrison said. “But
it’s you that’s got some tails on Mike’s compound.”
    Harris drained the
remainder of his bourbon and got up to go fix himself another one. From the
other end of the room, he said, “Junior bought a freaking big property, didn’t
he? You don’t buy that with peanuts. In the back of my mind, I’ve always
wondered if something fishy didn’t go down at the time of your arrest. Not from
you, of course, you took a pretty serious blow yourself. But I’ve always
thought there was something we didn’t know about all that went