Road Rules Online

Sharon Harrow recognized the man driving the Cadillac.  He was a repo man she’d come across several times while working for her uncle.  She’d never seen him up close, but he wasn’t hard to miss.  She spotted him limping into Andre the Giant’s as she sat across the street in the Dunkin’ Donuts parking lot.

Now he was driving Havalcek’s prized Cadillac.  Maybe Havalcek deserved to lose the car.  He was just as big a crook as Andre Koradovich.  Havalcek was also her uncle’s client, however, and extremely paranoid.  Unlike Koradovich, Havalcek insisted on hiring Jordan & Associates to watch his car lots “for vandals,” he’d said.

Yeah.  Right, thought Sharon.  How much money do you owe Koradovich?  And why isn’t he breaking your kneecaps?

It didn’t matter.  They’d stolen the car while she sat in the john the other night.  They’d also cost her a job she didn’t want.  Or did she?

Not for the first time that day, Sharon told herself as she started the Jetta’s motor she only wanted to prove herself to her uncle.  If Koradovich had hired that idiot to take the Cadillac somewhere, she’d have no trouble following him.

Save the Cadillac; save her job.

Simple.

So why didn’t she believe that as she followed the Caddie onto the Medina Freeway?

“Here’s the address,” said Koradovich as he stood in the dealership’s garage.  The air ratchets and lube racks had gone silent as he’d given his mechanics another hour off – with pay even – during Stan Yarazelski’s visit.  He handed Yarazelski a cheap cell phone.  “Here you go.  Untraceable and loaded with minutes.  As soon as you reach Miami, you call the number there listed with the address.  Got it?”

Yarazelski stuck the slip of paper in his shirt pocket and the phone in his pants.  “Easy enough.”

“You’ll be bringing back another car,” said Koradovich.  “I don’t know what yet.”

“You don’t know what kind of car you’re getting in return?”

“Relax, my man.  I know he’s good for it.  That’s good enough for you, too.”

Yarazelski spread his hands.  “It’s your money.”

(continue reading…)

“Where the hell is Mason?”

Estevez looked up at the neatly dressed man striding in through the entry of the sanctuary.  He had a big guy in tow who looked like an oversized accountant.  They didn’t dress like reporters, but they didn’t dress like cops, either.  Their suits cost too much.

“Who are you?” said Estevez, stepping down from the altar to meet the man.  “And how’d you get through the police line?”

The neatly dressed man thrust a card at him like a badge.  “Charles Aston III, Vice President of Reinsurance for Walden Insurance.”

Estevez made a mental note to be duly impressed as soon as he found time.  Maybe after he retired.  “So?”

(continue reading…)

Chapter 2

“Well, that’s tough,” said Koradovich, the phone pressed to his ear.  “We gave him a generous consumer loan at only twenty-one and a quarter percent interest.”  He had his feet up on his desk, a cigarette dangling from his mouth.  “With his credit, he’s lucky we even fronted him the money.”

He heard a knock.  A short guy with greasy hair and a shabby leather jacket stood in the doorway.  Koradovich waved him in.  “No, Mrs. Hernandez, I’m afraid my hands are tied.  If I let your son keep the car, I lose credit with my financial backers.  Then no one’s credit is good at Andre the Giant’s.  Know what I mean?”

The man shuffled into the room, his limp the result of a debt to Koradovich he’d let slide too long some time back.  Koradovich didn’t mean it personally, and the man didn’t take it that way.  It was business.

“Then I’ll see you in court, ma’am.  You have a nice day.”  He hung up the phone.  “Stan Yarazelski.  Stan the Man.  Come on in.”

“You wanted to see me, Andre?”  Yarazelski dropped into the squeaking swivel chair opposite Andre.

(continue reading…)