Hard Time Read Online Free

brother used to beat up. In his later teens, he honed his fighting skills on nightclub bouncers.
    ‘I’d like to wrap that fucking surfboard around his head,’ Wild Man said, ‘seeing as he’s kept us waiting this fucking long. Why don’t I just kick his door down and take his shit?’
    ‘That’s not good business,’ I said.
    ‘It’s not good business him keeping us waiting out here for two hours either!’
    ‘If you rob him, then who’re we going to go through?’ Turning to Wild Man’s cousin, Hammy, I said, ‘Keep the Wild Man under control, would you?’
    ‘That’s like trying to keep a bull from a red rag,’ Hammy said. ‘I’ll do me best.’
    I got out, and knocked on Sol’s door.
    ‘Come in,’ Sol said.
    ‘I’ve been here a while.’ Entering his house, not quite knowing what I was getting into, I feared someone might jump out and rob me.
    ‘I lost track of time,’ he said with an indifference that irked me right away. ‘I have your 500 Mitsubishis. I’ll be right back.’ He went into another room. For a few seconds, I half expected him to reappear with a gun. But my heartbeat slowed down when he brought out a Ziploc bag with more pills than I’d ever seen.
    ‘How much MDMA’s in them?’ I asked, feasting my eyes on the quantity.
    ‘125 milligrams. From Holland. I don’t sell any Made-in-America bunk. Besides, I’m told you can afford a lot more than 500. I’m sick of Arizona ravers coming to my house and buying a hundred here and there. I’d rather sell bulk to one person. It’d be safer for all of us. And the product will be good like these.’
    ‘Can I taste one?’ I asked.
    ‘Taste one?’ he said, surprised.
    ‘I always chew them. They have a distinct taste,’ I said, studying his face for hints of deceit.
    ‘Want a chaser?’
    ‘Water, please.’
    I examined a pill. More dirty white than beige. Speckled like a bird’s egg. A press of three diamonds: the Mitsubishi logo. Chewing it, I recognised the sharp chemical taste that precedes an Ecstasy high. ‘It’s a good pill. Here’s seven gees. If you want me to buy more, I expect a much better price next time.’
    The Ecstasy my friends and I didn’t eat, we dealt to the local dealers in Arizona. Making money from the dealers enabled me to increase the scale of things. I began throwing raves for thousands of people, generating enough profits to give away hundreds of Ecstasy pills every weekend and to squander thousands on lavish after-parties and other drugs like Special K, GHB and speed. The more I fed my friends with drugs, the more they pampered me. I was buying popularity, especially with the glitter girls who spoiled me at the after-parties. Due to all of the drugs and sexual attention, I was beginning to lose touch with reality. But I was enjoying every second of it without thinking I’d ever get caught.
    The ravers nicknamed me ‘English Shaun’ and ‘The Bank of England’. I was considered one of the wealthiest people in Arizona’s rave scene. So as not to get robbed in a scene that attracted all sorts, I formed my own security team. One of my security guards, G Dog – a tall Mexican-American with long hair and prison-tattooed arms – urged me to meet his brother, Raul. He said if Raul and his associates had my back, I wouldn’t have too many problems in Arizona.
    The grenade launcher on top of the biggest TV I’d ever seen belonged to Raul, who was watching a much smaller CCTV screen showing the comings and goings on the street crowded with lowriders outside his home in Tempe.
    ‘This is the English guy I want you to meet,’ G Dog said.
    Raul, short and plump, tilted his head back. ‘Wattup, homey,’ he said without smiling.
    ‘Pleased to meet you,’ I said, shaking his hand. ‘I like your TV.’
    ‘Damn, you talk funny – like an accent – I guess you are from England, homey. Come through to the kitchen. Meet my homies.’
    Raul introduced me to a gang of gargantuan Mexican Americans.