Missouri Loves Company (Rip Lane Book 1) by W.J. Costello Read Free Book Online

didn’t want to be sitting down if they decided to start getting rough.
    Officer Miller held a phone book in his hand. I knew what it was for. It was to beat me with. The thick phone book would leave no bruises on my body, no evidence that I had been beaten. Officer Miller was going to book me.
    Both cops moved to a corner behind me. Officer Brown stood leaning against the wall. Officer Miller stood beside him, arms folded, face scowling.
    The other two guys remained near the door.
    One of them moved a toothpick from one corner of his mouth to the other and then thrust his hands into his pockets. He had a white scar maybe three inches long running along his jawline.
    The other guy reminded me of a reptile. His beady eyes blinked slowly, like a lizard watching a fly. His tongue was lizardlike too. From time to time it would dart out, swish back and forth, and then slide into his mouth again. I could picture him sitting on a warm rock.
    The four men had me surrounded.
    Nobody said anything for a while.
    Finally I decided to break the ice.
    “When’s breakfast?”
    Behind me Officer Miller grunted.
    “The caterer arrives at seven,” he said.
    “Oh good,” I said. “Can I put in my order now?”
    Lizard chuckled. He pointed a thumb at me and turned to face Scarface.
    “Guy’s a character.”
    “Ain’t he though,” Scarface said.
    I wondered what these two guys were doing with the two cops. It seemed like all four of them were working together on something, and I was somehow caught in the middle of the something.
    I had been searching for Lizard and Scarface the night before, showing their pictures to customers at the Nobody Inn, trying to find somebody who could identify them. And now here they were. It just goes to show that it pays to shake the bushes.
    “We heard you was looking for us,” Lizard told me.
    “You heard right.”
    “The fuck you doing that for?”
    “Because I don’t like it when my motor home gets burglarized.”
    Lizard blinked once. His tongue showed briefly between his lips.
    Scarface began to clean his teeth with the toothpick.
    Both men had guilty looks on their faces.
    “Where’s the locker key?” Lizard said.
    “What locker key?” I said.
    “The one you got from Anna.”
    “Who?”
    Lizard frowned.
    “Listen,” he said. “We ain’t interested in you. We ain’t interested in Anna. All we want’s the duffel bag. Tell me where you hid the locker key and we let you go.”
    “I didn’t hide it. I returned it to its locker.”
    “Then you have the duffel bag.”
    “Jesus Christ. What the hell’s wrong with you people. No, I don’t have the damn duffel bag. I never had it, I don’t know where it is, and I don’t care.”
    “Your response don’t work for me.”
    “Well it works for me.”
    “You’re fucking with the wrong people.”
    “Then tell me who the right people are,” I said. “I’ll go fuck with them instead.”
    “You’re not going anywhere,” Officer Miller said, stepping forward.
    “Then can I at least get some breakfast?”
    “This look like Denny’s to you?”
    “I don’t want a Grand Slam breakfast. All I want’s some oats and coffee. Some cream in my coffee. No sugar. Give me that, and I’ll tell you what I know. Fair enough?”
    There was no point in holding out on them. I had nothing to hide, nothing to gain, and nothing to lose. So I figured I might as well them the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. At least it would get me some breakfast.
    “Fair enough,” Lizard said to me.
    “Good,” I said. “I like my oats with blueberries and cinnamon. A few raisins too. Chopped walnuts, if you’ve got them.”
    The four men went away and came back with my breakfast.
    I sipped the coffee. Not bad for jail coffee.
    I began to eat the oats. I didn’t sit down. I stood eating.
    “You better start talking,” Officer Miller told me. “You don’t, I’m gonna kick your ass. What do you think about that, eh?”
    My oats were