Sam Wolfe
Hello folks. A free look at a story I released under my pen name. The pen name that got me a start in writing to begin with, Prophet X.
Please check out my books, listed below! But definitely hang around and read the free preview and support me. Buy a copy of one of my books. Read it, do a review of it, hopefully positive but absolutely honest, and lastly: Share it! Thanks, brothers and sisters!
My book list:
Under my own name!
Sam Wolfe
City of the Dead
Pain exploded inside of me. Faintly, far away, I heard Bear howl in either anger or pain. Then that sound, all sound, was quickly cut off… #Mythology #Horror #Readers #Bookworms #Booklovers #Kobo https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/city-of-the-dead-35
Tau Ceti E
“I said you’ve got to wake them… And Nia, this is serious!”
“What is serious, Tom? You’re scaring me more than a little. What’s wrong? …
#SciFi #SpaceSettlement #SpaceTravel #BookWorm #Readers #BookLover #Kobo https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/tau-ceti-e
Run
A big dead rat, and a few even larger rats were breakfasting on him. And, suddenly, just like that, I was done. #CrimeFiction #CrimeReads #Readers #Booklovers #CrimeJunkie #Kobo #Drama #Thriller https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/run-139
The Bone Clan
by Sam Wolfe
The battle lasted for hours. They mourned the loss of their fallen comrades and vowed to never let their guard down again… Read more: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/the-bone-clan
Prehistoric #Neanderthal #Denosovan #Readers #booklovers #bookworm
Under my pen name Prophet X:
Wastelands Zero
The hand was mangled. It looked chewed, a finger missing, maybe an accident with a dog, his mind supplied. Accidents with dogs happened. #Zombie #Apocalypse #Readers #Horror #Apple #Nook #D2D https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/the-wastelands-zero
Wastelands One
Andrea Zurita was a young woman, there seemed no reason for her sudden illness and death, but there were things that should be done and so the local Mirukus, shaman had come. #Plague #Virus #Apocalypse #Zombie #Horror https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/the-wastelands-one
Wastelands Two
A blur farther along the line of buildings caught his attention, and he watched as another woman, also dead – he could tell from the way her skin stretched too tightly across her face… #Horror #Zombie #ApocalypticFiction #Apocalypse #Readers https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/the-wastelands-two
The Dope Man
by Phrophet X
The numbers changed on the screen and he picked up the phone and dialed the number he had been given. #Crime #Hardcore #Street #Hood #Fiction #OrganizedCrime https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/the-dope-man
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The Dope Man
Copyright © 2023 Prophet X, all rights reserved foreign and domestic.
This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your bookseller and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
LEGAL
This is a work of fiction. Any names, characters, places or incidents depicted are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual living persons places, situations or events is purely coincidental.
Dollar
“Hey,” Dollar said. They were stopped by the side of the road where he had been able to get a signal.
“Dollar,” Rich said. “I got it covered, but it’s going to cost you a little for me, setting it up for you… Are you okay to say, a hundred grand?” Rich asked.
“You can guarantee it for that?” Dollar asked.
“Right to his door: Money’s not an object. He’s a legit businessman too. Owns a couple of businesses down there, he won’t screw you over. Whatever it’s worth is what he’ll pay. Only thing is,” Rich said.
“A catch? I figured there would have to be a catch,” Dollar said.
“It’s small. I can vouch for you. And I did, but he’s not going to bring that kind of money someplace. You’ll have to meet him on his turf. Where he says to, where he feels comfortable… That’s all. You play by his rules, you get your money, and he gets the stuff… Will that work?” Rich asked.
“Hang on a minute,” Dollar said. He turned to Janine and explained the deal. She agreed to the hundred grand, and Dollar took his hand off the phone.
“Okay, but how do I get your money to you?” he asked.
“Easy. Get one of those air express envelopes, drop it inside and mail it to me,” Rich said.
“After the deal is done?” Dollar asked.
“Hell yeah. I Trust you, man. After the deal is done,” Rich said.
“Okay,” Dollar agreed. “We are good with that.”
“Cool,” Rich said. “Call me tomorrow and I’ll have better directions. For now it’s just Southern Alabama. You are going to Mobile. I’ll talk to my man, his name is Ronnie lee. Just like that, Ronnie lee, all one name. I’ll talk to Ronnie lee and get you directions… It might be him who calls you back… I’ll give him the number you gave me… Tomorrow morning? About this time?”
“Yeah,” Dollar agreed. “Until then,” he clicked off.
Dollar turned to Janine. She looked back at him.
“He did everything just right. Kissed my ass hard too, but it feels wrong,” Dollar said. “Rich was never that impressed with me. I was not in his crowd, you know? I did not sell really big like some of those other guys. Now he treats me like gold? Like we were best buds? And he’s okay with me sending his hundred grand fee after we make a deal.” Dollar shook his head, glanced off into the scrub brush that lined the side of the road and then continued “The Rich I know would never do that… Something just feels wrong about it,” Dollar said.
“Then we won’t do it,” Janine said. “We do not even need it, Dollar… You are right… We could just say to hell with it. Throw it in the river or something.”
“We will play it by ear,” Dollar said. “Maybe we’ll set some rules of our own tomorrow… For now we’ll just keep driving, what do you think?” he asked.
“The same thing: We have to go through there to get to Mexico or at least around there to go that way. If it feels bad, we’ll back out; just keep it moving,” Janine agreed.
They got back into the Jeep and backed out onto the highway.
Sharp’s Apartment
The Burg New York
Slim Easy
Saturday afternoon
Slim spent most of the afternoon disposing of the body at Sharp’s place and cleaning up the mess in the refrigerator. He finally found the shelves and put them back in, then went shopping and put the stuff that he purchased into the refrigerator.
He searched the rest of the house, but it was obvious that someone had beaten him to it. Clothes had been pulled out of the closets; including women’s clothes. He had not known that Sharp had, had a woman here. He wondered who the woman was, and wondered who it had been who had searched the house… Her? The only thing that really made sense was the two kids again. The locks were undamaged; whoever did it had a key. Slim knew Sharp well enough to know that he kept a spare key in his wallet. If they got his wallet, they got the key: If they got the wallet they also had the address.
A wife, he asked himself? The women’s clothes bothered him. He could not put it together in his head with what he knew about Sharp. It had to be something else, a wife just did not fit. And where was she now? Had she been here when the kids came here, if it was the kids? Was it her, the mystery woman?
Long hairs in the bathroom waste bag: Black; the same in a hairbrush he had found in the top dresser drawer in the bedroom along with several drawers full of clothes. If she had been here, why did she leave it all? Had she taken only what she needed and left the rest? After all, much of it had been pulled out and there did appear to be empty spots on the closet rod where hangers had been. Or maybe he just wanted to see it that way. Just because there was a bare spot did not mean there had been something there. He had not found any spare hangers, in fact, so if she had taken clothes she had taken the hangers too.
He came out of the house and pulled the car around front. The back of the house was designed to bring nearly anything in or out of the house without detection. Sharp had planted dense shrubbery and built an overhang that lead directly into the garage. Nearly the entire narrow entrance was also hidden from view by trees and a six foot tall wooden privacy fence. So he had loaded the body and a garbage bag full of stuff from the house at the back of the house. He had decided to remove all the women’s clothes. No rhyme or reason, just a feeling that they shouldn’t be there when the cops came to check the place, and he was sure they would be here eventually.
He looked across the street: A blind kept moving on the second floor of the house over there: An old brownstone apartment building; second floor, front right apartment. Okay, he told himself. He hated loose ends. He pulled out, drove down the block and around the corner. He pulled to the curb, got out and fed the meter. A ticket at this point would not do. He locked his car and walked to a pizza shop on the corner.
Marion
Marion watched the man in the car pull away.
“Fred, I tell you, something is not right. This guy I’ve seen over there before. But he’s never pulled around back like that, like he owns the place,” Marion said.
“I would not worry about it,” Fred said. “Probably hot for each other; just being careful. Drugs make you do funny things,” he said. He had allowed himself a second drink for the afternoon: He turned back to the football game he had been watching.
“I do not know,” Marion said. She came over to the couch and was about to sit down when someone knocked on the front door.
“Your friend Art, probably,” Marion said as she got up and walked to the front door.
“Who’s there?” she asked through the front door.
“Pizza delivery, Ma’am, apartment Two-A, right?” The voice asked.
Fred shook his head. “I did not order one behind your back,” he said.
“We did not order a pizza,” Marion yelled through the door.
“But it’s Two-A… It’s paid for,” the voice said.
“Well for Christ’s sake if it’s paid for open the door, Marion,” Fred said.
She frowned. “You did order it. You know you are not supposed to have pizza,” Marion chastised as she threw the dead bolts and opened the door.
Slim smiled, the pizza box balanced on one hand. He handed the box to Marion and she smiled back. He reached behind himself, pulled his silenced 9 mm and shot her in the forehead. The 9mm chuffed, nearly silent; Marion folded and dropped to the floor with a heavy thump. He stepped quickly into the room and shot Fred as he was getting up out of his recliner to see what the racket was about. Fred collapsed back into his chair.
Problem over, Slim thought. He bent down, picked up the pizza, which did not seem any worse for the wear, and stepped back out of the apartment. He closed the door behind him. He whistled as he hit the sidewalk, opened up the box, took out a piece of pizza and ate it on the way back to his car.
Just before he turned the corner a city police car came up the street and pulled into Sharp’s driveway.
Tight, Slim thought as he tossed the pizza on to the passenger side of the front seat. That was too fuckin’ tight.
The Burg New York
Atimus County Transfer Station 2
Sergeant Alice Tetto
Alice backed the car around to the open container; late afternoon was a perfect time. The county residents not in evidence: The large trucks done with their routes for the day: The dump about to close down for another day. Whenever she had something to dispose of and she needed privacy, she timed it so that she was here in the late afternoon just as she was now.
Sergeant Smith had met her on a back road on Fort Drum. That was not as risky as it seemed. Fort Drum had been a small winter camp back in the early 1900 hundreds: When it had expanded the first time from Pine Camp to Camp Drum it had incorporated the small village of Leary. The whole township: Farms, streets, the Leray Mansion, fields. At the third expansion, when it became Fort Drum most people had forgotten about the old township and its farms and roads rotting away on the reservation.
When Alice had come to work for Major Weston at Bluechip she had come from Drum. Re-assigned to bridge a gap, so she had thought. She had found out after that Weston had requested her specifically. Probably after reading her personnel file.
She had a certain propensity for violence. Her psychological evaluations showed an aptitude for following orders without question, and a certain flexibility of morals that some would find alarming, but which the government had already used her for more than once. Killing did not seem to affect her the way it did others.
She had served in Afghanistan and watched fellow soldiers fall apart when it came to killing. It did not bother her at all. Killing was part of the job. That was how she looked at it then: That was how she had explained her lack of apathy to the shrink that had debriefed her when she had been reassigned after the second tour to Drum. It was nothing special; it was how she was built.
Weston had embraced that side of her, and the old farms and fields hidden in the lost recesses of the base had become the perfect place for her to dispose of problems for him.
Unfortunately, the base was used more and more lately as a training facility. Because of that it had become somewhat unpredictable for her to dispose of problems there. The last two times she had nearly been caught, and that had forced her to adapt to a different strategy. The transfer station had proven to be the perfect alternative when there were large troop placements training or on maneuvers at the base.
Alice shut down the car and walked around to the back, looking in all directions, trying not be obvious as she did it: There was no one around.
The sexual relationship with Weston had simply happened. Another moral flexibility she had acquired in service to her country. Sometimes sex was also part of the job if you were a woman. An asset was an asset. Weston was not unattractive, but it hardly mattered. What did mater was that he found her desirable.
She had been summoned to General Wesley Lee’s office twice now: Both times under the guise of monthly training that was required for her security level. Not even Weston knew who his real boss was, but she did.
The first time had been two years before, just weeks after she had started her new job; the last just a few weeks before. The General had not known what was missing; he had simply called her in to encourage her to see the job to the end. That end was coming fast, he had told her. Nothing more. Just a pep talk, she had decided, to keep her in the loop. It had been so long at that point since she had seen him that she had begun to wonder if she was still working for the General at all. The summons had solved that issue completely.
She keyed the trunk lock and the lid rose slowly.
There was an end to her time with Major Weston. It was coming soon. The General had not been more specific, but he had not needed to be, she had already known. Maybe more than the General himself did, and Alice was not the sort of soldier to question orders from the chain of command. She had briefly wondered if it meant she would need to terminate Major Weston herself: If it was required, she would. She saw no real problem with it. The question in her mind was what might be next.
She looked down into the trunk. Smith had been easy. Bluechip was a small facility. Even with Drum nearby it was under its own command, not a sub command of the nearby base. There were a few hundred soldiers assigned there, and they all tended to socialize with each other, shunning the soldiers from the nearby base. If asked she would not have been able to put the reasons for that into words. Pride: A sense of place in the scheme of things? The elevation that the sense of working on something apart: Something special, afforded you? It was all of those things and more. And she knew, even when most of those who worked at the facility did not know, what was so special about Bluechip. Every problem she took care of knew something. And every one of those problems had given up their information before she had allowed them to die.
Two weeks before it had been a reporter from Syracuse. He had gotten a little too close: Spooked Weston. Weston had put her on him. She had taken him out after meeting him in a bar. Men could be so easy like that. He had followed her back to what he thought was her hotel room for a fun time. It was her hotel room, but rented only to do a job. A few hours later he had gone out to her car in her luggage. The next afternoon he had come here.
She knew about the meteor DX2379R. She knew it would probably hit instead of miss: And if it did miss it would not be by enough to matter at all. She knew all about project Bluechip’s real underlying mission, development of the SS-V2765 virus. She knew what it had been developed to do, and she knew all the problems that the General did not know about: She knew what it did do. She knew how Gabe Kohlson had been able to smuggle it out of the facility. She knew that the new Challenger he had been driving should have been a big tip off to Weston, but somehow he had overlooked it. She knew how he had sold the idea of stealing it to a local bookie he had been in deep with.
A drug developed to allow soldiers to live longer in combat, it had an unforeseen benefit. It would not allow you to die: You could live forever. She was sure he had downplayed just exactly how that second life would be lived.
The bookie, she assumed, had passed the message on quietly: Was it worth the relief of a five thousand dollar debt? Ten thousand? Whatever it had been that Gabe Kohlson’s gambling habit had racked up, it had been wiped out and there had been at least enough left over for the Challenger: Whoever held the real reigns on those debts had forgiven it. Kohlson had delivered and then, somehow the whole thing had gone bad.
Slim Easy worked for that person, whoever it was: If forced to guess, she would say Sin Q. He was the biggest and the baddest: The most likely to be able to capitalize on information and a product like that.
She did not like to guess though, and that part of it had nothing to do with her at all. The truth was that even though Weston could not see it, it did not even matter. The end was coming. If the General pulled the plug first or the meteor hit, or the scientists were right and even a close pass by that meteor would set off a sequence of destruction that would end society as they knew it: It did not matter. It was over already, one way or the other; just nobody was lying down yet. Nobody was calling it quits yet. Her included, so, she supposed she was no better than Weston or the General for that matter.
She looked down into the trunk at the bundled and bagged remains of Sergeant Smith, lately of the Quartermasters office at Bluechip.
He had met her on one of those back roads. It was a good place to meet even when there were maneuvers going on, and there had been.
Maneuvers meant gunfire, even live rounds. The whole area was off limits during maneuvers and training sessions, but she could have cared less about that. He had met her in a small clearing just off a one lane blacktop that had been chewed to bits over the years by tank treads, on the promise that she needed to show him something very important. She had taken him around to the trunk. He had been eager. The lid had risen to a plastic lined interior and she had shot him twice in the temple as the puzzled look had still been riding on his face. There had been no need to question him: There was nothing he knew that she needed to know: He had simply been unfortunate enough to be the author of the report listing the missing virus.
A camouflaged rain suit had slipped right over her uniform, and she had gone to work with an ax and a sharp knife that had been lying on the floor of the trunk waiting. By early afternoon the bagged remains had been resting in her trunk and she had been on her way to the transfer station.
She reached down, hefted the first bag out of the trunk and launched it into the huge steel container. Five minutes later she was finished and had paid her dumping fee as she left, smiling up at the woman in the office as she passed over the scales and drove out the gate.
Cleveland Ohio
Dollar
The tire came apart on highway 90 just outside Cleveland Ohio. It took Dollar most of an hour to get the space saver spare on and then get the Jeep back onto the ground. He drove off the interstate and into Cleveland. It took some turning around, but he finally made it onto a feeder strip that took him out and around the city. They stopped at a burger place, already sick of cold food; picked up lunch and then Dollar pulled into a mall parking lot and Janine went to work on him.
She put Sharp’s driver’s license next to his own face and then started with the hair. She used a razor to take Dollar’s hairline back to match Sharp’s own receding hairline. She used the eye shadow to make the skin under his eyes look a little baggier. And she bought a cheap pair of plastic reading glasses in a mall store that looks similar to Sharp’s glasses. She combed his hair straight back and into a small ponytail at the base of his skull and examined her work. A little more eye shadow under his chin, just below his lip, made his chin seem bigger. She looked him over.
“It’s pretty good,” she said at last.
“Yeah?” Dollar asked. She handed him the mirror.
“Whoa,” he said, looking side to side in the mirror. “It does not even look like me.”
“It’s not supposed to. You look really good. You look a lot like him… We are going to do it now?” Janine asked.
“We may as well,” Dollar said. “We had to stop, so we may as well. We’d just have to do it later anyway,” he said.
They drove to the first dealership they saw: If this one did not work out the road was crowded with them farther down.
Dollar found a used Chevy SUV: Low miles, big price tag, but in a city this size he did not think anyone would scoff at a large cash transaction.
He spotted the salesman as the salesman spotted him.
“Ray,” the salesman told him as he walked up and offered his hand.
“Sharp,” Dollar told him. He shook his hand and then turned back to the SUV.
“Nice truck,” Ray told him, launching straight into his spiel. “Best on the lot. Close to new. In fact the only way I could do better for you would be to sell you a new one.” Ray smiled.
“I do not know about that,” Dollar said. “I do not know if I have the credit for something like that.”
“Easy enough to find out. I can run it in just a few minutes,” Ray told him. He turned back to the dealership as if he really could just walk back and retrieve Sharp’s information. Like it was sitting on his desk just waiting for him to come and get it. He turned back and smiled at Dollar, and then turned once more; his eyes urging Dollar on.
“Really?” Dollar asked.
“Really… Let me go see. Find out where you stand. Go and look around… The new trucks are over on the other side. Go take a look, I’ll be right back.” He left with Sharp’s driver’s license and social security number he had jotted down on a small pad he carried in his shirt pocket. Probably for just that sort of thing too, Dollar thought. Maybe it was as simple as a quick walk back inside. Maybe it was very nearly sitting on his desktop, or would be soon enough. So soon that it would not matter that it had not been.
Dollar walked around the lot and looked at some new vehicles. He would’ve liked to walk over and talk with Janine where she had parked in the Burger Joint lot next door, but they had decided not to be seen together just in case. The salesman came back just a few minutes later.
“Sharp. I see no problem. You paid off the house on Lake Avenue?” he asked.
“Yes, yes I did,” Dollar said, hoping it was true.
“So your credit report is good right now. Nothing outstanding except your other car, the Ford Taurus. And that’s almost paid off… Same employer?” he asked.
“Yeah,” Dollar said, “same. Guess I do not change too much.”
“And that is why your credit rating is so good and your score is so high. What exactly were you looking for?” Ray asked him.
“Well I’m looking for something four wheel drive. That’s why I looked at the blazer. I’m going to do some traveling. I’m going all the way out to California to look at property,” Dollar lied. “Maybe I’ll be spending a little time on the desert too while I’m there.”
“Have you thought GMC Suburban? It’s a bigger vehicle, but so much nicer. Let me show you one. I ordered it special: Captain’s chairs, dual AC, and then the guy could not make the loan happen. This truck is nice, Sharp, very nice,” Ray said.
Ray sold him on the GMC. He also lined him up with a local agent who took cash and wrote an insurance policy for the truck. The loan was approved with no problem. Dollar had been prepared to put several thousand dollars down, but Ray had told him with all the incentives and rebates he would not have to put any of his own money down at all.
Two hours after he had pulled onto the lot he drove the suburban off the lot, licensed, insured and with a full tank of gas. They unloaded the commander; locked it up and left it sitting in the mall parking lot, the keys resting on the top of the roof like the owner had forgotten them.
Janine took over the driving, enjoying the way the big suburban felt on the highway.
The Burg New York
Slim Easy
“Yeah?” Slim said. He held the cell phone to his ear, the other hand on the steering wheel.
Sin Q,” Sin Q said in his ear. “I got a little tip. A guy I know down in Florida gets a call from a small time drug dealer up in The Burg: Wants to know if he can handle a large amount of coke and heroin that is about to be southbound. Says to my friend, he can make it come right to him. My friend says he’s a little overextended right now. He does not want to spook the guy, you see? Hangs up, calls me. What I want for you to do is go back there and talk to the other guy… Richard Dean… Rich to his friends… He thinks he’s something too. Even has a couple bodyguards,” Sin Q laughed.
Slim joined him. “On my way and Sharp’s place is taken care of. I had to clean up a little mess across the street. Could not be avoided,” Slim said. “Got hot just as I was leaving, but I left nothing.”
“I appreciate that, Slim,” Sin Q said. He gave Slim the address for Richard Dean. “You are on your way?” he asked.
“I’m on my way,” Slim said and clicked off.
He had just taken care of the stuff from Sharp’s house: He pointed the car back toward route three and The Burg, set the cruise control and settled back into the seat.
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