Here's Part 3 and this time I remembered to warn you about it being fairly long. Any comments or feedback are appreciated.


The Trade

© R Wood 2000

3

My dreams are always the same every time, but I never remember them. If I suppress them with a sedative, I get a double feature the next time around so it isn’t worth it. For the time being, my subconscious and I are at a stalemate. As long as the darkness in the world around me is no worse than my dreams, I think I can hack it. I’m worried that someday the nightmares and reality will blend.

I woke up when the driver door was unlocked and aimed my 10 mm at open door. It was only Maab with a couple cups of coffee, so I holstered it and sat up. My ribs didn’t complain and my face felt like most of the swelling had gone. There are only two things that SLA Industries makes well – weaponry and drugs. I commend them for it since I regularly need both to survive. My thanks go out to Mr. Badger-Head.

It was early evening and we walked together toward the shift briefing. She watched me as I walked and nodded.

“What?”
“You ain’t limpin. Guess that stuff you swallowed took care of the bruises.”
“It should, considering the cost.”
I stopped and looked at her.
“You never told me why you’re here or what you are after.”
She gave me a full smile and quipped playfully, “Later Grasshopper”.
I grinned and we walked on toward the meeting.

As Jaeger announced that my team was now in the #2 position, I could see Macy start to boil. I gave her my best smile and listened to the standard reports. Chaz blew her a kiss and she started to fume. Oh yeah guys, this is a good way to avoid problems with her.
This is a problem that I have to take care of before it takes care of us.

My crew boss wouldn’t be affected if something happened to Macy and her team, since she was part of Sasha’s crew. I hoped to avoid anything like that, but that psycho probably wouldn’t let anything drop. If she had an accident that couldn’t be traced to us, there wouldn’t be any repercussions. I needed to talk to Chaz later about it.

I knew that if I could take the #1 spot and hold it, I would probably be promoted to manager and get my own truck crews. Then maybe I could think things over and climb out of this cesspit. The trade is always looking for reliable talent, and I’m one of the longest running recruiters around. Provided no one shivs me, I can probably pull this off. Maab was right about getting out. I’ve thought about it, but I really am not good at anything else.

As we walked away Chaz held the stare of Macy’s driver. The guy’s name was Brion and he outweighs the two of us together by about fifty pounds.

“Man, can’t you pick a fight with a smaller 800 lb gorilla?”
“Whatchumean, man? Brion aint’ got what it takes to drop a stud like me.”

I grinned. He was macho to a fault.

“Keep it in your pants, we can’t afford trouble here.”

Brion was getting more aggressive by the minute and some message I didn’t see passed between them. It ended with Chaz grabbing his balls and yelling something about Brion’s Mom’s occupation. Macy and her runner grabbed the dumb hulk, while Maab and I pushed Chaz back around the side of our truck. It looked like Brion gave up the moment Macy latched onto his nose ring. Once we were clear from view, Chaz immediately became calm and started grinning like an idiot that had just won a pissing contest. I couldn’t help but grin back and smacked him in the chest.

“Are you in control?”
“Yeah man, I’m in control. Be seeing that pendaho later, though”.
“I’m sure you will.”

We climbed in and pulled the truck out into the night for the first run of the evening. I knew that Macy would really want a piece us now. Plenty of love to go around.

NEXT


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