“Sorry?”
“Saw him, at the back of a bar, with some dude who dealsblack market crap.”
“What do people involved with black market crap want with aseventeen-year-old kid?”
Dutch felt his innards seize.
Because that was a good fucking question.
“Dutch?”she called when he didn’t say anything.
“Deal it for them,” he pushed out.
“Is he doing that?”she pressed.“Dealing for them?Do youknow that?”
“No,” he forced through his lips.
“Okay, I’m no authority on this, but I’ve done a fewarticles on gangs.And gangs deal, and they’ll use a seventeen-year-old todeal.Non-gang suppliers supply kids who deal in schools.These are easilypicked-off, expendable soldiers in that war.One goes down, three pop up.Butblack market…”
She trailed off.
“No?”he asked.
“What’s their market?”
“Pharmaceuticals.Sperm.Maple syrup.Designer shit.”
“Okay, designer stuff, I can see.Kids want that.But Dutch,who is a seventeen-year-old runaway going to deal sperm and maple syrup to?Hehardly has those connections and there is no way anyone who wants that kind ofthing wants to see a seventeen-year-old front man.And maybe they need allhands on deck, they have so much product to move, but that’s thin.Especiallyconsidering they’ve got their fingers in so many pots, there’s way too much atstake to take on a recruit who’s so young, and green, what he can move wouldnot outweigh the dangers of him being a weak link that could lead to it allfalling apart.”
He could see she was a good journalist.
He could also see ahellasmartkid who was witness to whoever walked into his neighbor’s house before his daddied, now out of that house, out of school, lots of time on his hands, spendingthat time picking at threads until he found one that led him somewhere.
Dutch’s dad died when he was five.
But straight up, if he’d been twenty-five, or seventeen, andthe cops, or the Chaos brothers, did not take care of business…
He’d do it.
“Dutch?”she called.
“What?”he answered.
“You’re thinking about something.”
“It’s nothing,” he lied.
She didn’t say anything for a few beats before she asked,“Now…uh, areyouokay?”
He was not.
But this might lead him to being okay.
At least about Carlyle being something closer to it.
“All good,” he said.
“Since we’re on Speer, maybe I should give you my address,”she noted.
