Damaged Goods by Austin Camacho Read Free Book Online Page A

prepared him for those days.
    After a good long run to clear his head and a frozen waffle breakfast, he brewed a fresh pot of coffee and worked the telephone for a couple of hours. He didn’t tell Anita, but she had actually given him a pretty good lead on Rod. The car he drove was a very special customization. Whoever did that work would remember it. And people who do that kind of thing know each other. One call to an auto customizer led to another, on a telephone trail that seemed to move farther and farther west, until he got the comment he was waiting for.
    â€œMister, only one man on the east coast could have pulled off a chop job like that one.”
    Hannibal stepped out of his building just before eleven o’clock, pushing his sunglasses into place. A shout from up the block got his attention as he reached for his car door handle. Monte Washington was marching toward him. As always, Hannibal stifled his reaction to middle school fashion. Hannibal was sure Monte’s jeans were below his narrow butt, and he wondered what kept them from falling off.
    â€œDude! I been wanting to talk to you,” Monte said. His hair was in tight cornrow braids these days, and his chocolate complexion darkened by the summer sun. “You gotta tell me what it was like, hanging with Huge Wilson. Did you meet Missy and Timberland? And I know he got all the fly honeys, but did he share?”
    â€œI was working, Monte. I wasn’t focused on the honeys,” Hannibal said. Was Timberland a person? Hannibal thought it was a brand of boots. “And I’ve been wanting to talk to you too, after the last time I spoke with your grandmother.” Monte was the first person in the neighborhood to speak to Hannibal when he first arrived. Much of his drive to keep drug dealers out of the area stemmed from his concern for this one young man and the grandmother who was raising him. For Hannibal, Monte symbolized the promise of the future.
    â€œWhat’s Grandma been telling you now?” Monte asked, sliding his portable CD player’s headphones on.
    â€œShe told me about your final report card this year,” Hannibal said. “I’m not happy. We had a deal.”
    â€œIt wasn’t all that bad, bro.”
    â€œYou can do better,” Hannibal said. “And I wonder if you’ve been reading this summer like you said you would.”
    â€œYou want me to waste my time with my head in a book?” Monte asked with a grin. “Maybe we need to hook up a new deal.”
    Hannibal turned to lean back against his car. He had the feeling he had stepped into a well concealed bear trap. “What do you have in mind, you little hustler?”
    â€œI know you didn’t realize what a great opportunity you just passed up,” Monte said, padding around in what Hannibal thought were Timberlands. “But since you made the connection, well, you could introduce me to Huge.”
    â€œI could.” Hannibal looked around his block, smelling the eternal heat of the city and feeling the summer slipping away like Monte’s chances at success. Did he realize that he was in a race, and that some of his peers were already running? “But that’s a tall order. I think a meeting like that, under positive circumstances, would be worth, let’s say a book every two weeks, through the summer, and maybe the same deal after school starts.”
    â€œWhat?” Monte back-pedaled. “You don’t want me to have no life at all?”
    â€œWell, if it’s not worth it to you,” Hannibal turned and pulled the handle of his car door.
    â€œOkay, okay, but for that deal, I got to have five minutes alone with the brother, so I can get him to listen to some of my rhyming,” Monte said. “I could be his next big thing, you know?”
    â€œSure, Monte. Now listen, I got work to do. And you better get to the library and find something good because I’ll hook you up with