Billy Keene Stories Box Set
Contents
The Billy Keene Collection
Free Stuff
Book 1: ALL DEBTS, PUBLIC AND PRIVATE
Dedication
Saturday
Sunday
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
Saturday
Epilogue
Copyright
Book 2: BROKEN HEARTLAND
Dedication
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-One
Twenty-Two
Twenty-Three
Twenty-Four
Twenty-Five
Twenty-Six
Twenty-Seven
Twenty-Eight
Twenty-Nine
Thirty
Thirty-One
Thirty-Two
Thirty-Three
Thirty-Four
Thirty-Five
Thirty-Six
Thirty-Seven
Thirty-Eight
Thirty-Nine
Forty
Forty-One
Forty-Two
Forty-Three
Forty-Four
Forty-Five
Forty-Six
Forty-Seven
Forty-Eight
Forty-Nine
Fifty
Fifty-One
Fifty-Two
Fifty-Three
Fifty-Four
Fifty-Five
Epilogue
Copyright
Book 3: THE GRIFTED GIRL
Dedication
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-One
Twenty-Two
Twenty-Three
Twenty-Four
Twenty-Five
Twenty-Six
Twenty-Seven
Twenty-Eight
Twenty-Nine
Thirty
Thirty-One
Thirty-Two
Thirty-Three
Thirty-Four
Thirty-Five
Thirty-Six
Thirty-Seven
Thirty-Eight
Thirty-Nine
Forty
Forty-One
Forty-Two
Forty-Three
Forty-Four
Forty-Five
Forty-Six
Forty-Seven
Forty-Eight
Forty-Nine
Fifty
Fifty-One
Fifty-Two
Fifty-Three
Fifty-Four
Copyright
Author's Note
New Billy Keene Books
Thanks Crew
Copyright
Chapters
THE BILLY KEENE COLLECTION
1 - 3
Book 1: All Debts, Public And Private
Book 2: Broken Heartland
Book 3: The Grifted Girl
Chad Sanborn
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All Debts, Public and Private
Chad Sanborn
For Monk and Bean
Saturday
One
“That hurt?”
Pearce not responding to the question, instead keeping his eyes on the house up the street. The details of the house going blurry through the drizzle layering the windshield.
“Hey, I said does that hurt?” Chubba giving Pearce a hard, no bullshit stare. This freakshow sitting in the driver’s seat next to Chubba, fucking with him.
Chubba, real name Horace Self III, in his early twenties. A fat baby who grew into a chunky kid, everyone calling him Chubba long as he could remember, even after he’d shed the weight for muscle.
Still a big boy, just solid. Though lately, he’d started turning soft around the edges again. Not hitting the weights, eating too much junk. Chubba figuring it was related to the stress of everything going on.
Chubba looking at Pearce behind the steering wheel. Pearce, dressed all in black, metal sticking out of his face here and there. Ink peeking out from under his collar and sleeves. A one-man walking freakshow, Chubba liked to say. Chubba not caring if Pearce was around when he said it. Damn sure no friendship blooming between them in the couple of months since this deal had brought them together. Just about the money. After, both would be glad to move on.
It was Pearce’s fucked-up earlobes that really weirded out Chubba. Both of the lobes sporting a hole slightly bigger than a quarter. Each hole inset with a black metal ring, as if someone with meaty fingers took off their wedding ring and jammed it in there for support. Chubba unable to stop himself from looking at them and every time he looked at the holes Chubba thinking goddamn.
Chubba saying, “That’s got to hurt, right?”
Pearce still ignoring Chubba. Reaching up, flicking on the windshield wiper, for a moment resetting the outlines of the stone house they’d been watching for an hour or so. Didn’t look like a rich woman’s house. Comfortable maybe, but not big time lottery winner rich.
Pearce in his mid-twenties but still waiting on the ability to grow a full mustache. Stroking his wispy goatee. The drizzle again began warping the jagged edges of the bungalow’s front porch. The afternoon gray and damp with a chill that sank into the knuckles.
Pearce bored, finally giving in, asking Chubba does what hurt?
Chubba in disbelief that he has to be specific, saying those goddamn holes in Pearce’s ears, that’s what.
Chubba in his custom-made red and gold Nikes and his bottom lip jutting out thanks to a soggy lump of tobacco. Every now and then spitting brown tobacco juice into an empty beer can between his legs. Chubba was a natural born mouth-breather and with a dip in looking even more like a gorilla than usual.
Pearce lightly fingering the large hole in his right lobe. The barbed border of a black-and-red tatt
oo snaking out from under the cuff of his black, long-sleeve t-shirt. Chubba watching, fascinated, a little sickened. Not paying attention where he was spitting tobacco juice, missing his spit can, a trace of brown saliva hitting the cloth seat.
Pearce glaring at Chubba, a look warning him to be careful.
Chubba grinning back at him, bits of tobacco lodged in the cracks of his stained teeth. Chubba rubbing between his legs at the spit, driving it deeper into the cloth of the passenger seat.
“All better,” Chubba said. Chubba spit again into his can. “Like I give a rat’s ass about some stolen piece of shit Volvo.” Chubba said. “Where’d you pick up this piece of junk anyway?”
“OP,” Pearce said.
Overland Park, that checked out. Chubba remembering the Johnson County plate on the back of the Volvo. Pearce had claimed to be from Kansas City but it turned out he wasn’t from KC proper. Actually, he was from OP, just outside of Kansas City on the Kansas side. Not a big deal but Chubba catching it when Pearce let it slip a few weeks back, and Chubba thinking it meant something at the time.
“This thing got enough trunk space?” Chubba said. “We get down to it, I don’t want to all the sudden find out she don’t fit back there. She’s a big girl, you know.”
“So you told me.”
“Not tall-big but thick-big. Stumpy, like a fire plug. She’s short but not short-short. Less than average height, you might say. But thick, know what I mean?”
Pearce watching the house but giving a fake smile along, a big condescending nod. “Yes, I know what you mean. Chubba.”
“The fuck’s that supposed to mean?”
“What’s what supposed to mean?”
“Calling me Chubba like that.”
Pearce turned in his seat to look at Chubba. “That your name, right? Chubba?”
“My name is Horace, like my Daddy. Like my granddaddy. Folks just call me Chubba. Just a nickname. But right then when you said it, I think you meant something by it.”
“What did I mean, Chubba?”
“Like maybe you meant who am I to be calling someone else thick?”
“You said that,” Pearce said, laughing. “I didn’t say that.”
“Don’t act like you didn’t when you did.”
Neither of them saying anything for a while, Pearce smirking, Chubba fuming. Drizzle quietly covering the Volvo until finally, Chubba suggested they go over it again.
“Follow her around tonight,” Pearce said, “Wait until she’s drunk, then toss her ass in the trunk. Not real complicated.”
“Old hat to a pro like you, right?” Chubb said. Chubba plunged his tongue down into his bottom gum and extracted the spent lump of tobacco. Raising the spit-filled beer can, he stuck out his tongue and expertly dropped the wet chunk into the mouth of the can.
Pearce saying oh shit, looking in the review mirror.
Chubba about to tell him not to get all pissy, he didn’t spill any on the precious seat of his stolen car. Then noticing Pearce slumping low in his seat. “No not that,” Pearce said. “Fucking cops!”
An SUV rolling past them, a gold star and the word SHERIFF emblazoned in gold on the side, two cherry lights on top. The SUV pulling into the wide driveway of the stone house they were watching.
Chubba laughed. “Hell, that ain’t no cop. That’s Billy Keene.”
They watched as a young man stepped from the Escalade. Pearce hit the wipers, still not getting a good look at him. Could tell he was tall, though, even taller with the Stetson sheriff’s cowboy hat wrapped in plastic to protect it from the rain.
Chubba spit into the can even though he didn’t have a dip in his lip. “He ain’t jackshit.”
“He’s good sized.”
“Don’t make him tough.”
“Don’t make him not tough either.”
“Billy?” Chubba said. “He was couple years ahead of me in high school. Big shot athlete. Only reason he won the election is because it ain’t nothing but a popularity contest. Like high school itself.”
Chubba going on, claiming his daddy backing Billy's campaign, that’s the only reason he’s Caste County sheriff. “Hell, ain’t like the sheriff does anything around here anyway,” Chubba said. “Other than running county road speed traps and tracking down a lost cow every now and again.”
The two of them watching the sheriff ducking his head against the rain, trotting around to a gate along the side of the house. Met there by a young woman. Long, curly hair pulled back and tucked under a ball cap. She was lugging a large black bag and coming the other way through the gate. The sheriff stepping aside, holding the wooden gate for her. The woman smiling as she passed through.
Chubba and Pearce watched the sheriff watching the young woman as she ran to her car parked on the street. Then he disappeared around the back of the house.
“That her?” Pearce said, nodding toward the woman driving away in a Buick.
“Now does that girl look thick-big to you?” Chubba said. “She’s curvy, I’ll give you that. But nothing wrong with that.”
“If it’s not her, who is it then?”
“Am I supposed to know everybody in town?” Chubba said. “Caulfield might be small, but this ain’t fucking Mayberry.”
“Yeah, well that big son of a bitch isn’t Barney Fife either. Pearce said. “Our girl on the inside, she okay in there?”
At the mention of “our girl” Chubba’s cheeks flushing red. “Sharla’s fine,” Chubba said. “And she ain’t our girl, freakshow. You best remember who’s running this deal.”
“Oh, I remember,” Pearce said. Grinning, not all that surprised he’d gotten in Chubba’s kitchen so easily. “Daddy.”
That getting Chubba’s attention. Chubba turning his big ham head to glare at Pearce. And Pearce hooking his middle finger through the hole in his dangling lobe, giving his ear a tug.
“Goddamn, don’t!” Chubba bending over in his seat, queasy with phantom pain.
Two
Sheriff Billy Keene, mid-twenties, stepping into the small foyer of Arlita Hardy’s beauty shop, removing his raincoat. His nostrils flooded with the acrid smell of hair chemicals.
Placing his plastic-covered gray Stetson upside down on a small pine bench. Billy glad to have his hat off. Seven months on the job and Billy still self-conscious about wearing it. Growing up he’d never worn a cowboy hat like a lot of farm kids around Caulfield. The hat made him feel top heavy. But the people of Caste County considered the hat as much a part of the sheriff’s uniform as the badge and the gun. So Billy wore the hat.
Billy hanging his raincoat on a hook screwed into the wall before wiping his boots on the foyer rug.
“Wipe your shoes!” Arlita yelled from the shop.
“I am,” Billy yelled back.
“Do it again,” Arlita said. Billy hearing that deep laugh of hers.
Billy checking nobody in the shop could see him, then yelling, “There, I did it.”
“No you didn’t,” Arlita said.
“Damn it,” Billy said.
The sound of two cackling women coming from the shop. Arlita busy as usual. Billy wiped his boots again. Most people did what Arlita told them to do. Life was just easier that way.
Billy heading through the open entryway toward the laughter. The beauty shop was attached to the back of Arlita’s house. Arlita keeping her work and her life closely aligned the way she liked it. Billy appreciating that Arlita had upgraded the things in her life while managing to keep a sense of the way things were before she won fifty-four million dollars, after tax, in a multi-state lottery.
Arlita telling Billy to have a seat; she’d be with him shortly. He sat down in one of the hair dryer chairs to wait, legs crossed. He watched as she worked at a customer in the swivel chair, Mrs. Woodcock. Came in once a week so Arlita could “fix her hair.” Other women came in to “get their hair done.”
No one called Arlita’s business a parlor or a salon either. It was a beauty shop.
Arlita wa
s not a stylist. She was a beauty operator. Insisting she was, is and always would be.
The beauty shop, like the house it was connected to, was pretty much the same as it had been before Arlita came into money. Same warm, welcoming country style, but remodeled and expanded. Maybe a touch gaudy here and there. Everything with a little too much design in it.
But no doubt there was quality work in the details. Hollow doors replaced with solid ones, linoleum replaced with tile, New Jersey Formica replaced by South American granite. Everything in Arlita’s world was better, at least the parts money could fix.
Money fixes a lot, of course, but not everything. Billy learning a few money lessons too, after signing with the Yankees. Two million dollar bonus straight out of high school and set up to make a lot more until his shoulder gave out.
Now Billy with plenty money left so that he could do what he pleased whenever he finally figured out what that was. He had a lot less in the bank than Arlita had, but they’d both learned some of the same lessons along the way.
Once you come into any amount of money, you truly appreciate its power, something you always expected. You also come to understand its limitations, something that’s surprising at first but makes sense later.
And of course, there’s finding out the hard way who your friends are.
“Billy, how’s the sheriffing business?” Arlita said.
Arlita in a short-sleeve blouse and the flabby underside of her arms flapping and jiggling as she went at Mrs. Woodcock’s dyed hairdo with a hair pick, putting some height into it.
“Business is not too bad,” Billy said, watching Mrs. Woodcock’s hair grow with each stab of the pick. Mrs. Woodcock one of those ladies Billy had trouble imagining at any age younger than her current one. As if all her life she must have seemed to be in her fifties. And an old fifties, at that.
“This morning I had to help Don Tucker track down a heifer that got loose,” Billy telling how the heifer got herself caught in barbed wire down by the creek over on Frank Foley’s property. The animal wild-eyed and scared but it turned out all right for everybody involved.