American Blood by Ben Sanders Read Free Book Online

ubiquitous.”
    The guy shrugged. “Yeah, well.”
    He smoothed a hand across the top of the wheel, gestured through the windshield. “I hope you like our little meeting spot. We got all sorts of jammer shit in the truck so you can’t be listened in to. It’s all real fucking fancy. Tell you what, thirty years ago it used to be easy to break the law in this country. Now they got surveillance that’ll blow your mind. Satellites, tap your phones, whatever. Place’s gone to the dogs, right, Chino? People’s liberties, just, sayonara.”
    The guy by the Cadillac said, “Yeah, Mr. Frazer.”
    Frazer nodded to himself like he’d just imparted some deep wisdom. He looked close to sixty. Silver hair combed back off a receding hairline. A thick handlebar mustache that dripped down to a thick neck. Top button of his shirt open to accommodate it. Under his suit jacket he wore a leather shoulder rig, butt of a revolver visible. Maybe a .357.
    Wayne said, “You got some work for me?”
    Frazer looked at him. Sun still low, and on the cleared ground around them the shadows from the hills lay in wide curves. Ding, ding, ding, ding. “Thought with a name like that you’d be out of Texas. But you sound East Coast. New York or something.”
    Wayne said, “I’m not from around here.”
    “What’s your background, Special Forces or something?”
    “I can’t really go into it. It’s just an operational safety thing.”
    Frazer shrugged it off. “Just curious. I guess if you were shit I wouldn’t have heard of you. Or maybe I would, but for different reasons.” He laughed.
    Wayne didn’t answer. Big arcs across the windshield where the wipers had cleared dust.
    Frazer brushed something off a lapel. His expression went solemn. Getting down to business. He said, “I want a takedown of a rival operation.”
    “Okay.”
    Quiet a moment, like letting the implications settle in. Ding, ding, ding, ding—
    Wayne said, “Takedown, or takeover?”
    “Takedown. As in, I want people dead.”
    “All right. How many targets are we talking?”
    Frazer thought about it. “I don’t know. It kinda depends.”
    Wayne waited.
    Frazer said, “Look, situation is, I’m trying to broaden my operation a little, get some stuff into New York.”
    “And you’re facing some resistance.”
    “Well, yeah. And it’s not all that polite, either. I got stock gone missing, guys gone missing, ending up chopped. And when I say chopped I mean, you know.”
    He mimed starting a chain saw.
    “I had two guys show up in pieces. Brought you the photos, holy shit. Everyone’s doing the whole slice-and-dice thing these days. But it’s ridiculous really, as if you can just scare me off, and I’ll go try something else. I’ve been doing this for thirty years.”
    He stroked his mustache, checked his rearview mirror. Chino was walking a big counterclockwise loop of the cars. “It’s just fucking savage.”
    Wayne said, “So who am I looking for?”
    “I only got rumors at this stage.”
    “Rumors will do.”
    Frazer looked out his open door. “Apparently the pushback is from some guy called Patriarch. Or the Patriarch or something. I don’t know. It’s some clever Web-based system where he can control everything anonymously and sort of keep back from it a bit. Guy I know reckons he’s actually real young, like twenty, twenty-five maybe. Like, imagine that. Some fucking kid running an op where he’s got guys running round doing shit with chain saws. Arrogance of some people. Just blows the mind.”
    “So you want him gone as well?”
    “Well, yeah. I want fucking everyone gone. The people on the street actually stopping it coming in, and then whoever’s calling the shots. Christ, this thing. It’s put my blood pressure up about fifty points, I swear. Almost need a tire gauge to check it.”
    Wayne didn’t answer.
    Frazer said, “Look, I’m not after some showy vengeance murder or anything like that. This is all just business to me. I’m