Arrow's Rest by Joel Scott (best books to read all time .TXT) 📗

flattened and still a bit crooked to this day. He was going to get it fixed right afterwards until the campus queen told him it made him look hot just before she gave him the best blow job he’d ever had.

The boxing was a long time ago now, but people still remembered and came up to him wanting to talk about it. The fight game as they liked to call it. He tried to make it to his old club two or three times a month for light sparring sessions. Nothing serious, it just gave him a bit of a workout and let him casually bring up in conversation that he’d just come from a training session at the City Gym, yada yada. Whatever worked. Even Albright was fascinated. Always asking him questions about his old fights down to the smallest detail. Did he even feel the hits at the time, or was it just all swallowed up in the rage and excitement of the contest? Weird.

He’d met James Albright over a decade ago at one of the political fundraisers he sometimes attended and they’d gotten to know each other over the next couple of years. Albright was an up-and-coming star in the party and eventually asked Sullivan if he would consider coming to work for him. It meant increased status with a decent retainer and the promise of an inside track in some big money deals. He’d been flattered — okay and maybe a little greedy as well, if he was being honest — and walked away from the law firm that would have offered him a full partnership in a few more years.

Back then he still had a few ideals, and the legal paperwork on that first questionable rezoning flip might have left a bit of a bad taste in his mouth, but that hadn’t lasted for very long. The money started coming in, real money, and he’d dumped the hometown sweetheart who was holding him back socially and was off to the races. In hindsight, the move to the political world had been an error of judgment. He enjoyed the minor celebrity and the high-end women that came with the new job, but then he’d become involved in a real estate venture with Albright and Albright’s accountant two years ago. He’d put in three million, it had seriously stretched his resources, and by the time he realized that the reluctant sellers had been pressured by Albright’s hillbillies, perhaps even to the point of criminality, it was too late for him to withdraw.

If the complaints led to an investigation, the whole thing could come crashing down like a house of cards. It was going to take at least another six months for the deal to complete and for him to get his initial investment back, let alone the five million from the proposed subdivision that was projected to be his share of the profit over the following years. He’d insisted the deal be structured so that he could sell his interest in it at any time, and he thought he could find a buyer and still take a reasonable profit, but he knew Albright wouldn’t like it. That part of it worried him more than he cared to admit. That last scene up at the Properties where he’d stood by the door for ten minutes watching the man waltzing around the room conducting the music that blared from the speakers was disturbing, to say the least.

Recently conversations between them were strained and it felt like Albright was mocking him a lot of the time. The man had changed over the last year. It seemed like he was becoming more reckless with every passing month and blowing off many of those political allies he’d previously courted. His rallies had become more strident and his politics had swung even further to the right. Most people now considered him a fringe member of the party with no real chance of ever becoming the leader. But he was well funded and still a person of influence within the inner circles of the party with a devoted base, and his committee controlled a large block of votes. You offended him at your own political peril.

None of that stuff concerned Sullivan. He was not a political animal and had always been more concerned about profits than politics. What really worried him were Albright’s personal soldiers, the brothers Clint and Travis. They had been breezier than usual with him lately, mocking almost, as if they knew something that he didn’t. It occurred to him, and not for the first time, that Newcombe’s disappearance might not have been entirely voluntary. He didn’t think it was paranoid delusion to suspect that he might be next.

If he were to have any chance of getting out with his skin and his money intact, he’d have to think carefully about who to bring on board with him. He needed an ally. The accountant was the obvious choice but apart from the fact he didn’t know if he could trust him when it came right down to it, the man gave him the creeps. Not because Bill was queer, the lawyer wasn’t prejudiced. He had several gay friends. Hell, truth be known, he’d woken up with a sore ass himself once or twice after doing too many lines. It wasn’t that. There was just something about the man that gave him the willies. Bad word choice, he thought. Still, Lacey was the main architect of the deal, and Sullivan didn’t think it would be possible to get his money out without involving him.

He thought about the last time the three of them had met. Albright had been rough and irritable with bloodshot eyes and a raspy voice, the accountant skittish and nervous. The two brothers had come in at the end of the meeting, and one of them had slammed a newspaper down on the table in front of Albright. It was a curiously aggressive gesture. One of the headlines was