“What the fuck?!”
“Don’t make a move and you might live to see tomorrow,” Drake growled.
He turned his head, trying to get a look at Drake. Meanwhile, Drake was disappointed to see that he wasn’t one of the men from the other night. Damn, that meant that he wasn’t going to be cutting the herd as much as he’d hoped.
“Who are you?” the braindead idiot asked, his voice trembling.
Drake shook his head in pity. “I’m Drake Avery, Trenda’s big brother.”
“You’re not supposed to be here,” the man whined.
“Well, I am. Now, who are you?”
“Fred.” Drake rolled his eyes and waited.
“What? I told you my name,” the skinny guy finally eeked out.
“Your last name, you asshat.”
“Oh, Sanders. Fred Sanders.”
“Now, I want you to tell me all about yourself. Starting with how you met my father, what kind of relationship you have with the sheriff, and how you ended up in this car scaring the piss out of my sister’s baby girl.”
“I’m not scaring no baby.”
Drake held onto his gun with his left hand and with his right, he reached over the front seat and wrapped his big hand around the man’s scrawny neck. “You wanna re-think your answer?”
The man wheezed. Both of Fred’s hands came up to try and yank Drake’s iron finger’s away from his throat. It was no use. Finally, he gave up, his eyes bulging.
“Nod if you’re going to answer my questions.”
The man gave the best nod he could under the circumstances. Drake dropped him back into the front seat of his car.
“Prison. I knew your old man from prison. We done time together a couple of years ago.”
“He got ahold of you awfully fast considering he just got out three days ago.”
“Huey. Huey called us. He told us ole Norville was getting sprung. He rounded us up.” Great, it was a family affair. His dad’s cousin Huey was in on things. He’d always hated that fucker.
“Who’s us?”
“Us.”
Drake punched him in the back of the head.
The man let out a loud yell. “Are you trying to kill me?” he asked as he tenderly touched the spot where Drake’s fist had landed.
“That was a love tap. Give me names.”
“I don’t know everybody.”
The guy was a moron, Drake wanted to hit him again just to see if it would jumpstart his brain. “Give me the names you do know,” he gritted out.
“There’s Al, he did time for trying to steal a car. But it was an unmarked police car a block away from a police precinct. He’s none too bright.”
“That must mean he’s dumber ‘n dirt if you’re noticing.” Fred looked confused. “Go on,” Drake prompted.
“Leslie is a man, even though he has a girl’s name. He don’t like it when we try to call him Les. He got beat up a lot in prison. I personally think he liked it. Getting beat up, that is. Then there’s Snake. He’s with the brotherhood.”
Drake thought he knew what he was talking about, but he wanted to be sure.
“What brotherhood?”
“You know, the Aryan brotherhood. He’s a Nazi. He says next month he’ll have more guys coming.”
Fuck.
“Why is Huey so hellbent on recruiting guys to help my father?”
“It’s the other way around. Norville tells Huey what to do. Your dad and his cousin used to own this town. Huey’s been trying to keep things together, but Norville says he’s going to own the county with all his contacts.”
“How does the sheriff figure into all of this?”
“Snake told me that he doesn’t want to get his hands too dirty, he just wants kick-backs, so Huey’s been paying him and a judge off.”
Drake swallowed hard to keep the bile down. Just what kind of family tree had he fallen out of? And where the hell was Huey hiding out, because he sure as hell hadn’t been at the homestead last night.
“Where you from, Fred?”
“Kentucky.”
“This your car?” Drake could see the man consider lying. He knocked him on the same spot on the head.
“Ow. That hurts. It’s my aunt’s car.” Drake would bet anything that his aunt didn’t know Fred had it.
“Fred, you’re going to head back to Kentucky tonight. If I see your ass in Tennessee again, I’m going to kill you. Do you hear me?”
“Huey’ll kill me if I leave.” Drake set down his gun on the backseat, leaned over the front seat, grabbed him by the throat and used the thumb of his other hand to dig into the goose-egg on the man’s head. He was gratified by Fred’s scream.