Thirteen Million Dollar Pop

26

Waddy Dwyer couldn’t believe how easy it had been.

It was as if the Americans built with bloody kindling materials.

The night had already been a hell of a busy one, and sleep wasn’t going to be a part of it for him. The first piece had gone well, he thought, sniffing the intoxicating odors of gasoline and lacquer thinner coming off his shirt and skin.

As a matter of fact it was a thing of roaring orange beauty.

He pulled over behind a small grocery store and slathered his hands and lower arms in hand sanitizer. Then he stripped off his shirt, put on a fresh one, and stuffed the rank one in a Dumpster. No one of consequence knew he was in town or fuckall about what he was doing, but that was no reason to let the attention to detail drop. He got in his car for the drive through dark farmlands back to the city.

The second part of the evening promised to be more of a challenge. After all, the caballeros he needed to talk to could be pros or ex-pros, or could generally turn out to be a handful, so he’d need to be creative to get what he wanted from them.

Ah, just be a bit friendly, he thought, putting the car in gear and nosing it onto the main road, and generous of course.