Page 29 of Beast Mode Todd
“Oh shit.” Now he was really giving his throat a workout with that swallowingshit.
“Yeah, funny thing. He remembers you being kinda flush that weekend. Said he’d never seen you buy that much weed at once and even joked with you about cutting in on histurf.”
“Look, I didn’t know the cops were gonna come by, I swear.”
“Why did you bring that much weed to my place?”
“Listen I have a very good explanation for that. We were just about to open the business, we needed all the money we could find. I just thought it would be a good idea if I could off load some weed, get us some extracash…”
“Why didn’t you tellme?”
“I didn’t have a chance.” Lying ass. He’d been in my house a good hour before the cops showedup.
“I never even saw you bring that shit into my place. Again, why did you stand back and watch me take the rap for something you did?” Now here’s where I almost popped my leash. I guess I didn’t have my anger as under control as I’d thought.
“I can’t go to jail, look at me. I wouldn’t last a week.” Yeah, he’s more like the kid in Shawshank Redemption who lost his shit his first night in and ended up in the morgue. “I should break your fucking neck.” He held his hands up in surrender and scooted back on the bed infear.
“You got all that?” I looked towards the bathroom where Cal was coming through the door. “Yep, loud and clear.”
“Who’s that?” Doug had finally lost the last bit of color in his face and damn if his knees weren’t knocking together.
“That, is a marine buddy of mine. His specialty is intelligence.”
“What does thismean?”
“It means that you’re fucked.”
“Yeah but your case wasn’t tried in the corps. He can’t touchme.”
“Wrong again. You framed and defamed a decorated marine sonny. What makes it worst is that he’s already done the time, which means you’re in a world of hurt. It’s either us, or the civilians, one way or another you’re going down. You want me to take himin?”
“It’s up to you Doug, you want to stand before the tribunal or you wanna take your chances in a civilian court of law?” I had no idea if what Cal had said is true, hadn’t even thought along those lines. My only interest was in getting our names cleared, hers andmine.
I didn’t bring up her weed smoking, but figured it would get lost in the shuffle once the story came out. No one was gonna look at this shit too closely except maybe the D.A. and he can keep that shit under wraps once it’s been disclosed as her reason for going along with hisshit.
“I…what do you mean?” Doug looked back and forth between us two, real fear showing in his eyes now. Cal held up the little recording device before tossing me what looked like achip.
“It means you can come back home with me, or he’s gonna take you in. Before you make your choice understand that time in prison is way different than what you’ll face if the marines get their hands on you.” He started crying. Not even Mallory hadn’t been this damn pitiful when she faced medown.
He sulked and whined like a little boy as he moved around the room gathering his stuff and actually asked me why I couldn’t leave it alone since I’d already done the time. Good question.
“It’s either this or death, choose.”
* * *
Needless to saywe ended up on a plane together heading back home. I had my attorney meet us at the airport. He’d known what I was up to and was only too happy to have shit in order for the D.A’s office to take my cousin into custody.
I spent the better part of the day into the evening dealing with the shit. Florida has some dicey laws when it comes to recording without consent, but here in our home state no permission was needed. He’d never make it stick that I didn’t record him here if he ever even thought of that angle.
I didn’t get a chance to call her and by the time I was done it was too late to hit the road being as I was tired as fuck. I spent the night at my folks after filling them in on what was going on. Again, mom was the one out for blood and I had to calm her assdown.