OPIUM KINGS Novel excerpt

Bad Apple 

   “You’ve got to get that fucking guy's car out of there and park it at some train station or somewhere. Are your prints all over it?” Trebor asks.

  “Probably...yeah.” Bad Apple says.

  “Clean that fucking car and burn it. Far away.” Treb says

   “Anybody know that he was meeting you?” I ask.

   “I don’t know Smitty. Shit. Maybe.” Apples says. “We gotta figure out what the fuck to do.”

   “That’s what we’re trying to do.” Trebor says, “Where’s the body?”

   “In a steamer trunk down in my car.” he says.

   “Are you fucking serious?” I say. “You’re driving around with a stiff in your car? In a steamer trunk?”

   “I couldn’t leave it there Smitty! It was bad enough drivin’ into the city with my head out the window puking...but I couldn’t leave it there.”
   "Where'd you park?" I ask, not wanting to know the answer.
   "Downstairs, out front."
   "Fuck me." I say.

   I look out my window and sure enough Bad Apple's Electra 225 is parked right in front of my building.

   "You had to park the fucking thing there? Right in front of my fuckin' door?"

   "Where the fuck else should I have parked it Smitty?"

   "Fucking Jersey would've worked. Anywhere but my fucking front door. Where's the steamer trunk?"

   "On the backseat, covered with blankets." Apples says.

   "Fuck! What are you keeping the fucker warm? That thing is in full view of the fuckin' neighborhood makin' noise?" I look over at Trebor and he's just shaking his head with a 'this is fucking bad' look on his face.

   "You want me to move the fucking thing Smitty? I will."

   "I don't fucking know." I say. "Let me think."

   Now this is fucking great. It’s freezing mid February weather. The ground is frozen. We can’t turn our backs on Apples. We should, but we can’t. I don’t know what to tell him.

  “You should’ve put him in his car and torched the fucker somewhere.”

  “Damn Smitty. I couldn’t do that. No fuckin’ way. We gotta figure something else out.”

   “Well we ain’t digging a grave in this fucking weather. And I don’t know anyone with an incinerator. Do you?”

   There ain’t no way I’m gonna let him cut up a corpse in my apartment either. Thankfully he never asked to. I can just picture it. Carrying a steamer trunk up four flights of murderous, pre-Civil War, winding stairway and here comes old Mrs. O’Leary.

   “Good morning boys. Ooooh that trunk looks heavy. What’s in it?”

   “Some knick knacks Mrs. O, mostly old junk. A little bit of this and a little bit of that.”

   “Ooooh I think you’re leaking something there me boyos.”