Easy Crime 04 Kindle Edition Book 4 of 4: Easy Crime Jenna clutched the strap of her worn messenger bag, her knuckles white. Her gaze was fixed on the two figures illuminated by the erratic neon. One was a burly man, his face obscured by the deep shadow cast by a baseball cap pulled low, his frame hunched as if carrying the weight of the world, or perhaps just the heavy duffel bag clutched between his hands. #Crime #Fiction #KU #Readers #Thriller #Kindle #Audible #series
Jenna clutched the strap of her worn messenger bag, her knuckles white. Her gaze was fixed on the two figures illuminated by the erratic neon. One was a burly man, his face obscured by the deep shadow cast by a baseball cap pulled low, his frame hunched as if carrying the weight of the world, or perhaps just the heavy duffel bag clutched between his hands. #Crime #Fiction #KU #Readers #Thriller #Kindle #Audible #Series
Marva took a slow sip of her drink, her expression unreadable. “Midnight’s risky, Robbie. The place is usually crawling with people that late.” Her voice was flat, devoid of any emotion, a stark reflection of her hardened exterior. Years spent surviving in the unforgiving landscape of the city’s underbelly had honed her survival instincts, turning her into a creature of stark pragmatism. She had seen too much death, too much violence, to afford herself the luxury of fear or sentimentality. #Crime #Fiction #KU #Readers #Thriller #Kindle #Audible #Series
The air hung thick and heavy, a humid blanket clinging to the skin even in the pre-dawn chill. The city, normally a cacophony of distant sirens and rumbling traffic, was unusually quiet, punctuated only by the rhythmic tremor that vibrated through the very foundations of the buildings… #Crime #Fiction #KU #Readers #Thriller #Kindle #Audible #Series
He hadn’t changed much. Still the same lean build, the same unsettlingly calm demeanor that had always made me both wary and fascinated. His eyes, though, held a sharper glint, a honed edge that spoke of survival in a world even harsher than the one behind bars. He was a predator, disguised in the sheep’s clothing of a casual acquaintance, and the way he sat at the bar, radiating an aura of dangerous nonchalance, sent a chill down my spine… #Crime #Fiction #KU #Readers #Thriller #Kindle #Audible
The air hung thick and heavy, a miasma of stale cigarette smoke, cheap weed, and something else… something indefinably rotten. It clung to the peeling wallpaper, to the stained mattress shoved against the wall, to the very fabric of the room itself. This wasn’t just a dilapidated apartment in Harlem; it was a tomb, a suffocating cage built from neglect and despair. Rose-Lee, her eyes sharp and assessing, took it all in, the grime, the shadows, the sense of impending doom that settled like a shroud. Across the room, Alice huddled beneath a threadbare blanket, her eyes wide and fearful, a stark contrast to Rose-Lee’s steely gaze.
Dollar, their captor, paced like a caged animal. His movements were jerky, unpredictable, fueled by the relentless buzz of crack cocaine coursing through his veins. Sweat beaded on his forehead, his eyes darted nervously, reflecting the paranoia that gripped him. He wasn’t just high; he was unraveling, a frayed rope threatening to snap at any moment. The air crackled with his volatile energy, a palpable tension that tightened the already suffocating atmosphere. He muttered to himself, a stream of incoherent ramblings punctuated by the occasional curse, his voice a low growl that vibrated in the confined space.
The apartment was a testament to urban decay. The paint peeled from the walls in ragged strips, revealing layers of grime beneath. The floorboards groaned underfoot, a symphony of creaks and sighs that mirrored the building’s slow, agonizing decline. A single bare bulb hung precariously from the ceiling, casting harsh shadows that danced and writhed across the walls, creating an unsettling, almost hallucinatory effect. The air was thick with the scent of mildew and decay, a constant reminder of the neglect and squalor that had overtaken this once-proud building.
Outside, the city roared, a cacophony of sirens, car horns, and distant shouts. The sounds filtered through the thin walls, a stark contrast to the oppressive silence within. It was a constant, jarring reminder of the world beyond their prison walls, a world they desperately longed to return to. But escape seemed impossible, a distant, unattainable dream. Dollar’s unpredictable moods and the ever-present threat of violence made any attempt at escape fraught with deadly risks.
Rose-Lee’s mind, however, worked tirelessly, a relentless engine churning through possibilities. She was a survivor, honed by the harsh realities of the streets, possessing a cunning intelligence that belied her youthful appearance. She studied Dollar’s every move, looking for weaknesses, for cracks in his fragile composure. She observed the way he clutched his drugs, the tremor in his hands, the wild gleam in his eyes. It was a dance of predator and prey, a silent battle of wills played out in the confines of their crumbling apartment.
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CONNECTED: DELLO GREEN
Copyright 2016 W. W. Watson, all rights reserved foreign and domestic.
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This is a work of fiction. Any names, characters, places or incidents depicted are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual living persons places, situations or events is purely coincidental.
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DELLO GREEN
ONE
Small Problems for Big People
County Waste Transfer Station
Jimmy West
Jimmy West backed his big Dodge around to an open dumpster container, late afternoon was a perfect time. The county residents not in evidence: The large trucks done with their routes for the day: The dump about to close down for another day. Whenever he had something to dispose of and he needed privacy, he timed it so that he was here in the late afternoon just as he was now.
Smith, who now resided in the trunk of the Dodge, had met him on a back road of the local base. That was not as risky as it seemed. The base had been a small winter camp back in the early nineteen hundreds: When it had expanded the first time it had incorporated an entire nearby village. The whole township: Farms, streets, fields. At the third expansion, when it became a major base most people had forgotten about the old township and its farms and roads rotting away on the vast reservation. Jimmy, who had grown up in the area, had not.
Jimmy handled problems for different people. Very many of those people did favors for, or had business dealings with, people who had bad habits. Theft. Gambling. Prostitution, drugs, just to name a few. And many of those people with those bad habits got to know Jimmy West because they also had another bad habit: They constantly forgot to pay their debts.
Jimmy could see how a two dollar debt might slip someone’s mind. After all it was insignificant, but a three thousand dollar debt? Or even a thirty thousand dollar debt? No. He could not see how a debt that large could slip anyone’s mind. He couldn’t see how a debt that large wouldn’t be on your mind day and night until you had it paid, settled. Somehow, for some, it wasn’t that way and that was unfortunate for them because it meant they would most likely be getting a visit from Jimmy. A personal collection, so to speak.
Jimmy had a certain propensity for violence. His psychological evaluations in the service had shown an aptitude for following orders without question, and a certain flexibility of morals that some would find alarming, but which the government had used him for more than once. Killing didn’t seem to affect him the way it did others. In fact, it didn’t bother him at all. Killing was part of the job. That was how he looked at it then: And that was how he had explained his lack of empathy to the Army shrink that had debriefed him when he had resigned after his second tour. It was nothing special, it was how he was built. It was something his boss, Jojo White appreciated.
Jojo White ran the largest organized crime outfit on the east coast. He had met West fresh out of the service when some of those aptitudes had nearly gotten him killed. He had embraced that side of him. He employed West to fix problems for him.
Jimmy shut down the car and walked around to the back, looking in all directions, trying not be obvious as he did it: There was no one around. He keyed the trunk lock and the lid rose slowly.
West looked down into the trunk: Smith had been easy. Sometimes ordinary people picked up information or habits that became liabilities. When that happened Jimmy’s phone would ring. Not every problem he took care of knew something, but if need be every one of those problems had given up their information before he had allowed them to die.
Two weeks before it had been a reporter from Syracuse. He had gotten a little too close: Spooked White. White had put Jimmy on him. He had taken him out after have someone meet him in a bar. Men could be so easy like that. He had used one of White’s girls, and the reporter had followed her back to what he thought was her hotel room for a fun time. It was Jimmy’s hotel room, rented only to do the job. A few hours later he had carried him out to his car in his luggage. Today he had come here.
Smith had been selling in Jojo White’s cocaine territory. A bad idea. Jimmy knew he had sold the idea to a local bookie he had been in deep with. Move in, steal a little territory, sell fast and get the fuck out before Jojo even knew he had been there. It all sounded so easy when you were blue-skying it.
The bookie, Jimmy assumed, had passed the message on quietly: Was it worth the relief of a five thousand dollar debt? Ten thousand? Whatever it had been that Smith’s gambling habit had racked up, it had been wiped out: The man who held the reigns on those debts had forgiven it.
Jimmy, if forced to guess, would say that had been Jojo White, or someone who worked for Jojo. He was the biggest and the baddest: The most likely to be able to capitalize on information like that.
Jimmy didn’t like to guess though, guessing could get you dead pretty damn quick. So while he had curiosities about some things he handled, they were not strong enough curiosities to encourage him to ask a single question that he was not supposed to ask, ever. The jobs came through his cell. He answered, said yes in the right places and did the work: When the work was done he called another number. Later that day or the next the payment arrived in his bank account. A few times he had met with Jojo at his request. Sometimes he had met with others that also worked for Jojo, but for the most part he worked alone and took his orders over the phone.
He looked down into the trunk at the bundled and bagged remains of Smith. He was packaged up with actual garbage. He preferred to stop by a local nursing home and pick up a few bags from their dumpster to do the packaging with. It kept people from looking too closely.
He had met Smith on one of those back roads. It was a good place to meet even when there were maneuvers going on, and there had been.
Maneuvers meant gunfire, even live rounds. The whole area was off limits during maneuvers and training sessions, but he couldn’t have cared less about that. It was easy enough to sneak in, he had met him in a small clearing just off a one lane blacktop that had been chewed to bits over the years by tank treads, on the promise that he needed to show him something very important. He had taken him around to the trunk. He had been eager, probably thinking this was his way into the drug trade. The lid had risen to a plastic lined interior and he had shot him twice in the temple as the puzzled look had still been riding on his face. There had been no need to question him: There was nothing he knew that anyone needed to know: He had simply been unfortunate enough to have the audacity to challenge Jojo White.
A plastic rain suit had slipped right over his own clothes, and he had gone to work with an ax and a sharp knife that had been laying on the floor of the trunk waiting. By early afternoon the bagged remains had been resting in his trunk and he had been on his way to the transfer station.
He reached down, hefted the first bag out of the trunk and launched it into the huge steel container. Five minutes later he was finished and had paid his dumping fee as he left, smiling up at the woman in the office as he passed over the scales and drove out the gate.
TWO
Two months earlier
Dello and Nikki
Springfield New York
“Get up, get up, get up,” Dello said. He laughed. Nikki ignored him. “Honey, I have to go… I’ve got about a million things to do.”
She opened her eyes and looked of him. She was curled into his side, it was the way she slept and as much as he had to get moving he didn’t want her to pull away from him.
Dello was up on his elbows on the bed, Nikki pushed up on one elbow herself and laid her head on his stomach.
“A million, huh?” she asked.
“At least,” Dello said. One nipple poked out at him as she raised her head once more.
“But this is your day off, baby. We always sleep late…” She pouted.
“Uh huh. Except, baby, it’s almost over. And we’ve got things to do. You have your own things to get done today too… Right?” Dello asked. His hand dropped to her bare back and then trailed along down the center of her spine to her ass. He knew it was counterproductive. Not likely to get either of them moving any sooner, in fact probably later, but she had a great ass. A great ass.
She smiled at him, her blue-gray eyes mischievous. Her hand snaked down under the edge of the sheet and found him already hard.
“Ah, hah,” she said. “I think I’ve discovered something.”
He laughed, but his hands, both hands, ran across her bare cheeks. “Bring me this,” he said quietly.
She rose up on her knees and then threw one leg over his chest. His hands came up, cupped her cheeks and pulled her to him.
The morning passed them by for a little while.
Later
Dello looked at the clock. An hour had slipped by. Nikki was curled back into his side. Her breasts pressing against him, one hand resting on his stomach.
“I know, I know,” she mumbled. She raised up, one nipple poking out at him again and gave him her crooked smile.
“Couldn’t we just lay in bed all day? I promise you, you won’t regret it,” she said.
“Not until we have finished our part and it’s not done.” Dello answered. He reached for her and she came to him, the weight of her breasts against his chest. “A little while longer and days off will really be days off, baby,” he promised.
“I love it when you call me baby,” Nikki said. She sighed. “Since I can’t convince you with my womanly charms, I guess I better get myself in gear,” she said.
“You already did convince me. It’s an hour later, baby. You’re going up there to check things out, right? That’s a four hour trip.” Dello said.
“I know… I know,” she kissed the tip of his nose. “And I do take it seriously. I know it’s for us. For our future… Do we have tomorrow?” she asked.
“No, baby. I’ve got something I have to do for Jojo… I’ll be gone three days… I told you,” Dello said.
“I know,” she put her hands behind his neck. “Back in three days?”
“Back in three days and all yours, baby,” Dello agreed.
“I’ll do anything for you, baby. Anything. So long as it’s you and me in the end,” Nikki told him.
“You and me is all it is,” Dello said.
“You and me,” Nikki agreed.
Brownsville Two weeks earlier
Rico
“I grew up here,” Rico said. “That’s why I came back. Spread the money around, you know?”
Kelvin Gaynor nodded. “Sure, man. I can see that. You been good to us.”
“Yeah,” Sweet Jones added. “Gonna make you an honorary black man. A brother of another color.”
Kelvin smiled. One gold tooth glinted back at Rico.
“You ain’t fuckin’ around with anything anymore, right?” Rico asked. He looked at both of them. Letting the question fall between them.
“I got too much respect for my body to do that shit again,” Sweet said.
“Had to ask,” Rico said and smiled. “Some men can’t walk away. Fall into that shit and it gets them… You stay straight and I’ll give you work,” he said. “Same token, if you fuck up I won’t be able to save your asses… This is a big deal… I’m taking a chance with the two of you. I don’t need to tell you, right?” Rico asked.
“No, man,” Sweet said.
“Yeah, we’re good,” Kelvin told him.
Rico smiled, slipped one hand into his jeans, and pulled out a folded envelope. “There’s three grand in there. Get a halfway decent car. Buy one,” he looked at Kelvin. “I know how good you are, blanquito, but I can’t afford for you to get popped… So, buy one. Just ditch it when you’re through with it; so don’t buy it in your own name or some dumb shit thing like that.” He smiled. “Fifteen for each of you when we’re done… A day’s work… You can’t get that nowhere else. That ain’t no food stamp money, ese”
They both nodded.
Rico turned and got into the back of the limo that waited at the curb. He leaned out the rear window. “I’ll let you know… Get the car, it’ll be a few weeks… Stay out of trouble.” The black glass rolled up silently and he was gone. The limo purred away from the curb, traveled slowly down the block. People along the street stopped to look. The car made the corner and disappeared.
Kelvin looked at the envelope in his hand.
“Tell me you ain’t thinking of buying no fuckin’ car,” Sweet said.
Kelvin grinned. “Fuck no. I can’t spend money when I can take it for free. Like a woman. What man pays for it if he’s getting it for free? None,” Kelvin said. He looked around, people we’re looking at them.
“Come on,” Sweet said. “People is watching.”
They walked off down through a nearby alley and a few minutes later they were walking a rusty section of railroad track that ran behind the buildings…
Get the books…
Connected: Short Hauls Kindle Edition
Book 1 of 3: Connected
A collection of seven crime stories; including Harrows… They had been drinking one night when Robby had come out with the murder bit. #ShortStories #CrimeFiction #Watson #Readerrs #Kindle
Connected: Sanger Road Kindle Edition
Book 2 of 3: Connected
Sanger Road… Pulled from his mundane life, Carl finds a world where anything is possible if you are willing to risk everything… #Crime #Readers #Amazon #Kindle #BookLovers
Connected: Dello Green Kindle Edition
Book 3 of 3: Connected
Jimmy West backed his big Dodge around to an open dumpster container, late afternoon was a perfect time to dump a body… #CrimeFiction #CrimeJunkkies #CrimeReaders #Kindle #Amazon
Gus Dyer is a detective no more. Staring into the deep wells of corruption for too many years sent him into a spiral. He tried to use the bottle to find his way out, but that only dragged him in deeper. The road to Redemption is a look at that fall and how hard that fall was. But Gus is determined to stand on his own two feet again. It remains to be seen whether he will ever become a detective again, but he is finding out that being a detective is not about a badge. It isn’t something you take on with the position either. It is in your blood, and if you have it, you cannot help but follow those impulses that flood through your body with that blood when you know something is wrong. Dead wrong… #crime #thriller #mystery #amazon #ku
Gus Dyer is a hardcore detective in the big city. He knows what crime is, and he has seen the worst of the worst walk her streets and taken those same people down. Some to jail, some to the gates of hell where they belonged in the first place.
This time he is on the trail of a hired killer, Jimmy West. West works out of the city. It is his base and fortress, the place where he can roam free among millions of other people unseen, unchallenged and free to continue his crimes. #crime #thriller #mystery #amazon #ku
The dust swirled around my worn boots, a miniature desert storm kicked up by the frantic thump of my own heart. The air hung thick and heavy, the scent of dry earth and something else… something metallic and sickeningly sweet, clinging to the back of my throat. It was the smell of blood. Old blood. New blood. The kind that stains the soul as deeply as it stains the earth. I’d been clean for six months, six agonizing months of sweat-soaked nights and gnawing cravings, a testament to a willpower I never knew I possessed. Six months of staring at the cracked pavement, avoiding the shadowed corners where my past lurked like a hungry ghost. But tonight, the ghost had found me.
