(2012) Blood on Blood by Frank Zafiro Read Free Book Online Page A

for long goodbyes here, not that there would have been one, anyway. I turn to go, but stop.
    “You okay, Ania?”
    What the hell am I saying? Like I give a shit.
    “Sure, Jerzy.”
    “Yeah, well, I didn’t mean anything earlier. I just thought you shook me down. I hope you don’t bruise real easy.”
    “No worries. I’m a big girl.”
    “Sure, sure. What are ya, all of twenty one, twenty two or some crazy ass age like that?”
    “Close.”
    “You work a lot of hours at Ambrozy?”
    “As many as I can get.”
    “Is bartending all he’s got you doing?”
    She just shrugged. “I wear a few different hats.”
    “Be careful with that. Patrik paying you good?”
    “He pays me more in a week than my father ever made for a month of laying brick all over this town. The apartment is rented pretty cheap to me and a few Ambrozy employees live here, too. Patrik owns this building now.”
    “Yeah? Well, okay. You take care of yourself and maybe I’ll drop in again for a drink soon.”
    “I’ll be there.”
    I pat my pockets for the car keys and find them.
    “So, there’s just one more thing. You know where I parked last night? Drawing a little blank there.”
    “Right out front. I drove, parked it real careful.”
    I’m taking the steps two at a time down from the third floor and thinking about everything I got going on. I can’t forget to call Patrik by noon today, either. I’m going all the way in on that thing he had for me. I got some good money here now but there’s a helluva lot more waiting to be had.
    Like old Gar always said, ride those hot streaks all the way to the end. Ride the piss out of them until you know things have gone cold. Don’t jump off that fuckin’ train too soon.
    That gets to me start thinking about him and I push it all down just like I’ve always done. He was, and still is, a rat bastard. Hey, so am I. But he’s my rat bastard. He’s still my old man and fuck anyone that ain’t on board with that.
    I come out the front door of the apartments and bang, there is my car, only a few spaces down.
    I like this Ania.
     

EIGHT
    Mick
     
    I’ve never been to prison.
    Jail, sure. In the year and a half I spent on the job, I booked my share of suspects. And I saw the inside of a jail cell for a few weeks on that shit Harris and the Sarge pulled. But prison is a different matter. Or so I hear.
    They checked me through with all the efficiency you might expect. Slow and steady. Lots of waiting. And repeating myself. And showing identification. And being searched.
    All the while, the guards kept a professional detachment, coupled with a hint of arrogance. There was a time when this would have pissed me off, maybe even pushed me over the edge, but today I didn’t even say a word. All I could remember was wearing the badge myself and talking about how these guys were just wannabe cops who couldn’t make the varsity team.
    So maybe I deserved it, yeah?
    That’s what I thought for a little while. But after over an hour, I started feeling a little bit like I imagined the cons must feel every day. Something along the lines of “You know what? Fuck these guys.”
    So when some guy named Hebert with a thick French Canadian accent asked me for the fifth time who I was there to see, I’d had enough.
    “Gar fucking Sawyer,” I snapped and pointed at the paperwork in front of him. “Or can’t you read English?”
    Hebert gave me a look that said he routinely scraped things off the bottom of his shoe that rated higher in his book than I did. I radiated back that he rated even lower than that with me.
    “You want to watch dat attitude,” he said. “Dere is a process.” He pronounced it pro-sess .
    “Your pro-sess is for shit. I’ve answered the same questions half a dozen times.”
    “Dis is a prison, Meester Sawyer.” He scowled at me meaningfully.
    “No shit. I thought it was the deli.”
    His scowl deepened.
    I wasn’t finished. “You do know the point is to keep people in these