What does an author do when he wants more folks to read one of his favorite stories? Well, this one gives it away… at least the first bits of it. Because I want you to read them. In the next couple of weeks I’ll be running a Decisive Moment promo. To give you a taste for this quirky, fast-paced story, I will post samples of the first few chapters as part of my usual #SaturdayScenes weekly sharing. Let me know what you think!

Chapter 3

“Visiting hours are way over, man,” Jimmy tells me when I walk into this room. He looks at me for just a moment before he returns his attention to the small TV hanging from the wall.

I point at the screen. “What? Am I interrupting your favorite program?”

“I’d pause it, but they don’t have DVR here.”

I sit next to the bed and allow us to admire two scantily dressed female forms slink across a jungle scene on their way to some prize or challenge or whatever they do in that dumb show.

“Survivor,” he says with a ring of awe in his voice.

“I know.”

“Good show.”

“Speaking of surviving.” I reach into my pocket and hand him the prepaid phone I bought for him. “From now on, use this phone whenever you call me, but only at the number I’ve pre-programmed in there. And you only use this phone when you call that number. Got it?”

He’s staring up at the TV, where the lighting has improved, and the camera goes in tighter at one of the chicks, close enough to border on soft porn.

“Hey,” I say. “Did you hear what I said?”

“Got it. I call you from that phone at the number you jammed into it.” He turns to me long enough to say. “I can multitask.”

“Sure.” The show goes to commercials, and I stand up. Making sure Jimmy’s looking at me, I take out a roll of red electrician’s tape, cut two pieces and stick them at the upper left corner of the room’s window—the corner that shares a wall with the TV, farthest away from Jimmy’s bed.

“What’s that?” he asks.

“You said the sun wakes you up in the morning.”

“Yeah, man. It blasts full-on through that window. The curtains don’t do much.”

“Good.”

“What do you mean good? I can’t get any sleep all morning. Makes the room hot, too.”

I sit down again, turning the chair toward Jimmy. I also grab the wired remote and turn off the TV.

“Hey!”

“What did you tell him?”

“Tell who?”

“Your neighborhood banker.”

“You mean Nicko?”

I’m doing all I can to not get annoyed, and failing. “You don’t have insurance to pay for all these medical bills, and you don’t have two credit cards that aren’t worth more than their recyclable value, much less a bank account. Yeah, I mean Nicko. What the hell did you tell him?”

“I’m not liking your tone.”

“Do you like Nicko’s tone better? Because it sounded a little abrasive to me.”

“Did he call you?” Now he’s getting annoyed, indignant even. “I told him not to call you.”

“Well, he did.” I take a deep breath, taking in all the antiseptic hospital smells, then exhale it slowly. “What. Did you. Tell him.”

“Nothing, man.”

“Well, that nothing has him pressing me for 10K tomorrow morning. At twenty-five points. You can still do math, right Jimmy? In case the drugs have you a little fuzzy, that’s twelve and a half I have to hand over.”

He lets out a triad of his perfect curses, then rejoins the Queen’s English, “All I told him is what I’ve told him before. That I’m good for it.”

“And when that didn’t satisfy him, you know, given your less than stellar track record—” I wave at his broken leg, “What additional assurances did you give him?”

Just then the door parts open and a nurse steps in halfway. “Everything OK in here?”

“Yeah,” I say. “Everything’s just fine.”

She hesitates before saying, “We can hear you out there.” She pauses again, then adds, “Visiting hours are over, you know.”

“Sorry. We’ll keep our voices down.” I lower my voice another notch. “My brother and I are discussing finances. You know. How we’re going to pay for all the fine care you folks are giving him.”

“OK,” she says with a nod, then steps back out closing the door behind her.

I return my attention to the interrogation, set my voice volume to a hissing whisper. “What did you tell him?”

“Why? What did he say?”

More evasion. Typical Jimmy. Now he wants to know what Nicko said before he answers, just to make sure he doesn’t give too much or trap himself in a lie.

I lean in, keep my voice low. “He seems to be pretty sure we, you, I, whoever can come up with the money.”

“What do you mean?”

“Twice, when I told him how it was too much money, he said, ‘But that’s not the way it is, is it?’ Like someone told him we’re sitting on a pile of cash. Where would he get that idea?”

“It’s what he does. You tell him you’re flush out, and he doesn’t take no for an answer.”

“Jimmy, please.”

Jimmy pauses to lower his head and examine the palm of his right hand, as if the answer is there. His try at projecting defiant indignation has reached an end, and now his expression morphs into that of my little brother, sad to have gotten caught in mischief, sorry that he has to confess, and begging for my help.

How many times have he and I done this dance? I’ve lost count. Even while deployed at Iraq—twice—and Afghanistan, I’ve had to face him down over a computer screen. Even from there, as if by remote control, I’ve had to bail him out. Before that, since Mom died, it’s been me to come through for him because Dad, long gone, now remarried and with a nice career in corporate security is smart enough to stay away from the mess Jimmy leaves in his wake.

Jimmy looks up at me, and for a moment I catch the glint of tears in his eyes. “This is heavy man.”

“As heavy a ton of bricks as you’ve been under,” I reply.

He pauses in one last attempt at holding on to his little slice of truth. “I may have told him you and I just finished a big job. That we have some cash coming in.”

“What kind of job?”

“We’re both photographers, so what do you think?”

“What did you tell him about this job.”

“Nothing, man. Jeez. Get off my back. He doesn’t care. All’s you have to tell him is you got cash coming in and he improves his outlook.”

“That’s not the vibe he gave me.” I point to the empty bed across from his. “I don’t want to end up here, next to you, with my own collection of busted bones.”

He smirks at that. “That’s not going to happen. You’re just too bad ass for that to happen to you.”

“Speaking of. Did the topic of my bad ass-ness happen to come up?”

“Huh?”

I narrow my eyes. “You know what I mean.”

He drops his gaze. “He brought it up.”

“And?”

“I didn’t make any promises.”

“But you didn’t exactly dissuade him.”

He grunts a single chuckle. “Dissuade? There’s none of that with Nicko.”

“Yeah. I’m getting that.”

I’m also getting that Nicko’s business dealings involve more than loan sharking. That makes me a little nervous, that he goes around recruiting sharp-shooting talent. I told Jimmy to stay away from him and find another bookie/loan-shark for that very reason. As the leg in the cast testifies, Jimmy didn’t listen.

Jimmy is looking up at me. “Did you start making contacts? About the pics?”

“Two contacts, two meets set up for tomorrow.” I stand up. I’m ready to leave, go grab a greasy burger and a beer, get some sleep if indigestion and nerves don’t thwart me.

“Numbers 3 and 4?” His contrite expression has given way to Jimmy’s brand of beaming hope.

“Something like that.”

“What do you mean?”

“Gotta go. It’s been a long day which unlike some people, I haven’t spent it on a bed with fluffy pillows.”

“Hey, man. These pillows ain’t fluffy.” He uses the buttons in the bed controls to sit up just a bit. He’s seeing something in my face that darkens his joviality. “Everything OK?”

“No, Jimmy. Nothing’s OK. We just got to swim through this sewer water and come out the other side.”

He takes that in with a frown. I start to turn for the door just as he points at the window. “You never said what that red tape’s all about.”

I stand by the door, nod slowly. I’m so tired I forgot to tell him. I say, “That’s so I can get you some police protection.”

“Hey, man, you don’t mean to—”

I cut him short, and in as few words as possible I explain my plan and his tiny part in it. Before he can object, I head out in search of that greasy burger.

Let me know what you think. If you can’t wait until next week’s installment, you could always…

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