Delicious by Mark Haskell Smith Read Free Book Online Page B

young, blond, and looking like they were poured into their uniforms. You want to fly with frightening-looking biddies with hairy moles sprouting out of their chins? Take a seat in economy.
    The flight attendant came up to Jack and looked down at him. “Would you like a cocktail? Mai tai or piña colada?”
    Jack smiled up at her. “Fruity drinks are for fruity fellas. Gimme a beer.”
    As he said that he adjusted himself on the seat so a blind person would’ve noticed his enlarged and turgid cock straining against the fabric of his pants. The flight attendant noticed.
    â€œAre you having trouble with your tray table?”
    Jack grinned at her. “It won’t go down.”
    She smiled at him, a detached, slightly condescending smile that indicated she’d had about enough of assholes like him and would quit tomorrow if only her husband hadn’t lost all their money in the stock market.
    â€œLet me.”
    The tray table banged down, the drink and tiny bowl of mixed nuts soon after, and then she was gone.
    Stanley looked at his dad. “Why’d you do that?”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œFlirt with her.”
    â€œI had a stroke, Stanley. I’m not dead.”
    â€œYou offended her.”
    â€œThat’s what you think.”
    â€œShe forgot about me because you bugged her.”
    â€œHe who hesitates becomes lunch.”
    Stanley hated when his dad said that. A pout spread across his face. “I’m thirsty.”
    Jack turned away; he couldn’t stand the whining. Stanley was never a good traveler. Even in first fucking class he was whining about not getting a drink when all he had to do was push the little button on the armrest and the chick with the sweet ass would be hustling down the aisle to attend to his every whim. Why couldn’t Stanley figure that out? A monkey could do it.
    Jack sipped his beer. It was cold and slid gently down his throat, cleaning the airplane air out of his mouth, leaving a sweet and sour aftertaste on his tongue. He was happy. This move was genius. Sure, it’d been a big investment, almost a million bucks. But he’d done it before and—except for the disappointment of Seattle—it’d worked out well. You had to take a risk if you wanted to grow. What was the cliché, break eggs to make an omelet? Jack didn’t like omelets—steak and eggs was more his kind of breakfast—but he knew that pussies stood pat while the gambler hit—except on seventeen. It was the only way to beat the house. Sometimes you just gotta lay your ass on the line. That’s how he took his father’s lunch truck business in Detroit and made it the success it was. He spent years feeding Teamsters on construction sites until he discovered the big money in feeding Teamsters on a movie set.
    Jack’s dad’s relationships with the AFL-CIO paid off when Jack moved the company to Las Vegas. He muscled out a little guy—not without a fight, of course. The little guy turned out to be resourceful and have some connections himself. They were mostly Hollywood connections—something Jack hadn’t developed at the time—and for a while there Jack was worried. But then he hired a fixer, who took care of things the old-fashioned way. The scrappy little guy died of carbon monoxide poisoning in his catering truck, and that, as they say, was that.
    After Las Vegas, Seattle and Portland had been a cinch. Moving into Honolulu was just the next logical step in Jack’s long-term business plan.
    Jack had had to take out a loan for most of it, using his house as collateral. But it was worth it. The trucks and gear had landed two weeks ago and been stashed in a warehouse. No one knew what was in them; no one knew what they were for. He had put Lucey Truck Sales on the manifest. Any longshoreman or AFL-CIO member taking a casual interest would think Jack was opening a truck dealership on the island. That was how he