“We should go see Skinny Pete,” Jury said. He was focused on using his knife to clean underneath one of his fingernails. He looked up when he felt everyone staring at him. “What?”
“Who the fuck is Skinny Pete?” Cypher asked.
“Petty criminal,” Jury said with a grin. “Mostly mugs old people when he can get away with it.” He chuckled “He rarelygets away with it because the old people are stronger than him. Big time coke head, though. He’ll know if there’s someone new in the game.”
“The fact that you know about him and Cypher doesn’t says something…” Warrant told him. “I don’t know what exactly. Just…something.”
“Skinny Pete tries to keep his nose clean,” Rotor started, then he and Jury snickered together at the unintentional pun of a coke head having a clean nose. Cypher sighed. Rotor coughed back the rest of the laughter and continued. “He can usually stay off law enforcement’s radar.”
“Other than when he’s beating little old ladies for their purses?” Demo asked in disgust.
“Well, yeah,” Jury said. “Other than that. Though last time he tried the lady must have had a purse full of nickels. Took out one of his teeth the way she swung that thing at him. Another beating like that he’ll probably move on to taking lunch money from kids.”
“Is that better?” Demo asked, genuinely confused about how off the rails this conversation was getting.
“I mean, it is funny. Sort of. Imagine a bunch of angry first graders kicking the snot out of a crackhead. Just piling on like feral little jackals.”
“Do we want to know how you even know about this guy?” I asked him.
“It’s not as bad as it sounds. I owed some piece of shit money from a poker game. He tends to hang around Skinny Pete. Met him when I was repaying my debt,” Jury explained.
“How is thatnotas bad as it sounds?” Cynic asked.
Jury opened his mouth to answer, but shut it when Cypher started talking.
“Warrant, Pyre, take those two,” he pointed at Jury and Rotor—who glanced at each other as they were singled out—and go talk to the rat.”
“Mmmm,” Jury said, “he really doesn’t like being called a rat.”
“What the fuck are we supposed to call him?” Scythe asked. “And why do we care what he likes?”
“Just go talk to him,” Cypher told us.
“Sure thing, Prez,” Warrant told him. “Where can we find Skinny Pete?” He looked over at Jury.
Jury glanced at his watch. “At this hour? Home asleep.”
“A coke addict…asleep?” I asked with raised brows.
“Fine, home fucking a prostitute. Hell I don’t know. I just know we’ll do better going to find him sometime tomorrow.”
“Why’s that?” Demo asked.
Jury and Rotor exchanged glances again. Rotor spoke up this time. “Skinny Pete has…an aversion to the dark.”
“An aversion…” Cypher said. It wasn’t a question. He was just repeating that and probably wondering what he’d done wrong in a previous life to have to be dealing with this shit in this one. “Fine. Tomorrow then,” he said. “Let me know what you find out.”
With that we all parted ways. I got on my bike. The whole ride home, I thought of Rae and those kisses we shared on the couch. Even with the likelihood that the Iron Circle was here and we’d be making moves soon, I wasn’t going to put the brakes on pursuing her. I’d done that for long enough. It was time to move forward with her. I could handle killing shit heads and seducing my woman at the same time. No problem.
CHAPTER 18
Raeleen
Humming to myself, I scrubbed my hands until they were clean, then went over to my office. I leaned down and opened up the little refrigerator I kept in there. Frowning, I stared at the shelves that were empty of what I was searching for. “That’s…weird.”
“What’s weird?” Ramona asked as she appeared in my office doorway.
Jerking a little, I looked over my shoulder at her. If you weren’t expecting someone, hearing voices in a funeral home could freak you out a little. She’d managed to catch me off guard. “Oh…my apple’s missing.”
