excerpt from The Dealer

Everything fell silent as the smoke simmered out of the engine and blood trickled from my cut. Jimmy’s headlights grew near, illuminating me in my paralyzed state. I tried to outrun them. I did the best I could. Now I was done for. The agreement was shattered. I’d ran. I’d ran like a damn pansy. The cops can’t cooperate with a runner. I gazed at the empty desert ahead of me and listened to Jimmy and his partner step out from the car, footsteps drawing closer and closer.
The ghostly desert winds called out to me.
I was a dealer.
I was a gangster.
I was an informant.
I was many things, but tonight I was a runner.
I kicked the shattered door open with my paralyzed leg and threw myself out of the car, propping myself up against the hood. Then, I began to run, if you can call it a run. I limped through the sand, staring into the heart of darkness, hearing Nikki’s distant murmurs, as if she was out here somewhere watching over me.
“Game over, Wild Card,” said Jimmy from behind.
I couldn’t run. I was a cripple. A gimp. A loser in two worlds.
“You can’t run outta this one,” said Hunter.
“The desert won’t welcome you, Jake. Give it up.”
They surrounded me, pointing their FBI issued .45 Berettas at me.
“I’m not going back,” I mumbled. “I’m not going back to Vegas.”
“Oh, but you have to. We have to settle this once and for all. We have to bring down the Roman Empire.”
“Go to hell!”
The cut on my forehead stung with pain.
Jimmy approached me until our faces met. “I’m sorry to do this, Jake.”
With that said, Jimmy slammed the handle of his gun over my cut, plunging me into a world of pain where conscious was at a total loss.

I woke up with my face on the dirt, sand in my mouth and bitch of a headache. My legs and hands were tied together by zip ties and I was sprawled in what looked like a desert graveyard. Tombstones looked down at me in my vulnerable space. It was so dark, the only light coming from the flashlights.
“He’s awake,” said Hunter.
The light instantly flashed in my face.
“Oh,” said Jimmy. “Just in time. This looks about five feet. What do you think, Ray?”
“Five feet’s good. Not the usual six. No, tonight our boy will be buried five feet under.”
Jimmy climbed out of a hole, tossing a shovel over a large pile of dirt. I smelled rotten corpse mixed with worms. A full moon shined high over the mountains. I sensed what these assholes were up to and I didn’t like it.
“He might climb out though,” said Hunter.
“Nah, our boy is in no condition to be climbing anything. Go ahead, grab his feet.”
“All right.”
They lifted me from the ground, one by the legs, the other by the arms and swung me like a sack of potatoes into the hole. I landed with a fierce impact on my back, feeling my spine crack. I yelled with pain, chocking and coughing on dirt. I was inside a hole, surrounded by walls of thick soil. The FBI men stared over me, smiling with a look of victory.
“We never meant for it to get this heated, Jake,” said Jimmy. “But you decided to become a fugitive. I hate fugitives because they always eventually get caught. They’re a waste of everybody’s time. Now you wasted your own time and the FBI’s. We were building a steady case. We had everything going according to plan and you had to go pull off this insane stunt.”
“They killed Nikki!” I yelled, spitting saliva mixed with sand. “They were gonna kill me! What did you expect me to do?!”
“You could’ve come to us, bro,” said Hunter. “We would’ve protected you. Didn’t have to go running to old Elvis over there. That redneck’s going to jail for aiding a fugitive. You fucked it over for the two of you.”
Jimmy shoveled some dirt and poured it over me. The dirt rained over my face, into my eyes, my nostrils, my ears. I coughed with disgust.
“You like the taste of that, Jake?” said Jimmy. “That’s what redemption tastes like. The taste of death. The taste of revenge. The taste of liberation. That’s what Neil Wilson tasted, along with all those other unfortunate people The Empire laid to rest in this desert. How does it taste, Wild Card? You like the taste, the smell, the feel of irony. How does it feel!”
Hunter shoveled some more dirt over me. I couldn’t move. Shockwaves of pain enveloped my body, overcoming me to paralysis. The dirt burned my eyes so I kept them closed, feeling the dirt slowly bury me alive.
“It’s your call!” I heard over the dirt clogging my ears. “Just say the word and we’ll throw these shovels aside.”
I love a woman named Nikki Shore.
“Just say you’ll help us and we can get out of here, grab a bite to eat at Lenny’s.”
Nikki Shore was the girl of my dreams.
“Help us bring down the men that killed Nikki.”
Nikki!
“Don’t forget the ones responsible for the death of your girl. You can still get your revenge.”
Revenge. Justice. Nothing matters anymore. I just want my Nikki back.
“The Santucci name will be gone forever.”
I shuddered at the word, picturing Carlo Santucci’s menacing glare, the look he gave when he was angry. I could see him giving the order to kill my Nikki. I couldn’t let him get away with it. I couldn’t let bad men get away with doing bad things. I lifted my arm under the dirt and yelled as loud as I could. Suddenly, everything was very still. The shoveling had stopped. A hand grabbed hold of mine and pulled, lifting my body out of the dirt with intensity. I opened my eyes and climbed out of the hole.
“Good boy, Jake,” said Jimmy. “You got your whole life ahead of you. Don’t wanna end up another corpse in a foxhole.”
Hunter patted me on the back. “Let’s get out of here.”
I cooperated. I walked side by side with the law back to the car, the same car that had earlier chased me through the desert. Sitting in the back seat was none other than my best friend, my old dealer pal. Sally Franchesci stared at me with watchful eyes.
“I believe you two know each other,” said Jimmy.
Hunter was laughing.