Wiseguys: Blast From the Past by Aaron Michaels Read Free Book Online

to just leave them alone.
    "Think we ought to call an ambulance?" Carter said.
    He was just giving the guy shit, but Bess answered him. "You should let him sit there and bleed," she said. "Harold's got no more sense than his brother."
    Brothers. Tony could see the resemblance now. Sort of. Billy's face was smeared with blood from his broken nose, and the flesh around his eyes had begun to swell, making his features hard to see.
    "They hurt you?" Tony asked Bess. "Before we got here?"
    She shook her head. "They wouldn't let me go home, kept that shotgun out and at the ready just so I knew they were serious. But they didn't hurt me."
    That was good. Tony didn't want to have to convince Carter not to kill them.
    "If we call the sheriff," Tony said to her, "what are you gonna tell him about what happened here?"
    Bess looked him in the eye. She knew what he was asking.
    "You shot him in self-defense," she said. "He shot at you, and you shot back."
    "That's not what happened!" Harold's voice didn't have much strength to it, if it ever did. He sounded more like a petulant little boy than a hate-filled man. "He shot me! I didn't do nothing to him, and he shot me."
    Tony wiped his hand over his side. He was bleeding, but not so much he needed to worry about it.
    "You didn't do nothing?" Tony said to Harold. "Then how come I got buckshot in me?"
    "You got shot?" Bess bustled over to Tony and took a good look at him. Tony winced as she prodded at his side. "Sit down," she said, all business and no longer shivering. "Over there."
    She pointed him at a rickety, stained kitchen table surrounded by three cheap chairs to the left of the front door in what was no doubt originally designed to be a dining room. Given the stacks of crap on the table, Tony doubted anyone actually ate there.
    "I'm all right," Tony said.
    Bess glared at him. "Sit."
    Tony sat. He kept his eyes on the guy in the chair, but he sat.
    Carter pulled out his cell phone and placed a call to the sheriff. The guy on the floor -- Billy -- stirred and moaned, but he didn't try to get up. Bess brought hot water from the kitchen, along with a roll of paper towels, and proceeded to clean Tony up. Carter stood in the living room, keeping watch over the two brothers while everyone waited for the sheriff.
    Tony kept his gun in his lap until they heard the sheriff's car roll down the dirt driveway, then he laid his gun on the kitchen table. Carter had pulled his shirt out to cover the gun at his back. Unless the cops patted Carter down, they wouldn't see his gun. No need for the sheriff to find out both of them had unregistered weapons.
    This part was over. Bess was safe. Tony was ready to get the hell out of here.
    If the sheriff let him.
     
    ∗ ∗ ∗
     
    Bess made Tony go to the hospital where a pretty emergency room doctor removed four shotgun pellets from Tony's side along with a few pieces of splintered wood from the door.
    Considering how things could have gone, a few pellets and some wood wasn't a bad outcome. Fucking amateurs always complicated things. At least Bess was safe.
    Back in Jersey, he would have been treated by a doctor on his uncle's payroll. Hospitals had to report gunshot wounds to the police, so back home, the only time someone in the family went to the hospital was when the injury was life threatening. But this time the sheriff already knew what had happened at the Munroe farm. Tony had no need to keep his injuries secret.
    Bess had told the sheriff exactly what she told Tony and Carter she would. The sheriff had looked skeptical, but Bess stuck to her story with the same backbone that let her sucker punch her kidnapper. Whether the sheriff believed her or not, he didn't attempt to discredit her version of events.
    "You doing okay?" Carter asked him when they both made it back to Carter's van.
    Tony relaxed against the passenger seat. The doctor had a light touch, but the local anesthetic was beginning to wear off. He felt the sting from where she'd