Only You by Jerry Cole (the top 100 crime novels of all time TXT) 📕

weeks earlier, a random virus popped up in China called Covid-19. It was meant to be a nothing virus, similar to the common flu. However, experts were claiming that it spread at three times the rate of the flu, and was far more deadly too. It had the potential to become a global pandemic, they said and might, if things really got out of control, put a halt on international travel altogether.

Sherman assumed that this was all hysteria. He had to! But the emergence of the Covid-19 flu was enough to send a wave of panic through the tourism industry. If international travel was forced to shut down, even slow down, then... Sherman didn’t even want to think about the consequences.

The last couple of days in particular had been the worst. It was him, his marketing team, his sales team, and anyone else who he thought might be able to help, locked away in a tiny meeting room trying to figure out what the hell to do. They had to come up with a backup plan for if Covid-19 turned out as bad as some people thought. And they also needed a plan in the meantime, something to sell clients and the public so they knew everything was going to be fine.

It was an absolute mess.

His eyes flicked to his phone, still blank, and then back to his laptop. As he drafted the master email, more and more complaints and queries came through. Some wanted assurances that all would be fine. Others asked how much it would cost to cancel certain deals and bundles already paid for. One client even suggested cutting China entirely out of all travel programs until this thing was sorted.

Sherman groaned as he typed, deleted, reworded and typed again. He was having a hard time concentrating and it was all because of this —

His phone suddenly vibrated on the dashboard. It was just a text message, reading ‘Come now.’ Where Sherman was set to go, the last thing he wanted to do was ‘come now.’ But he had no choice, especially if he was going to get what he came here for...

With a reluctant sigh, Sherman closed his laptop – that could wait for later – climbed from his car and, as he did, whispered a silent prayer that he’d get out of this alive and in one piece.

He was buying drugs; it was as simple as that. But this time, it wasn’t Mad Dog Dan who was supplying them. This time, it was Mad Dog Dan’s own dealer that had requested to sell them to Sherman. Yes, requested. For reasons Sherman could not imagine, nor did he really want to, the man who Mad Dog Dan bought from had asked specifically to sell to Sherman the next time he wanted to buy.

“What? Why?” Sherman had blurted at Mad Dog just two weeks ago when he told him of the new arrangement.

“I dunno,” Mad Dog had shrugged. Where Sherman had once been a little put off by Mad Dog’s presence, now he just pitied the poor guy. He was run down, malnourished and heavily diseased by the looks of things. “But when Curly wants to chat, you don’t say no.”

“Curly?”

“Yeah. Curly.”

Curly was the head of the Hades Angels motorbike gang; the kind of gang that one sees stories about on the evening news, and reads about in the morning paper. Sherman had done a little reading on Curly and the Hades Angels before making the call and nothing that he had read inspired much confidence.

So, why was Sherman still going through with the buy? As he slowly edged toward the dark, narrow alley, and then began his way down its length, he had no idea. Actually, that’s a lie. He knew why, but it was sad to admit.

Sherman was an addict. Once upon a time it had been alcohol that he relied upon to get him through the night, and now it was cocaine. It had slowly been intensifying over the past few months, but was now close to being out of control. He’d kept a small lid on it in Bali, oddly enough. But that was just because he’d had Bradley there and didn’t need it as much. But here and now, living alone in Sydney, there was nothing keeping him from that white powder.

So, with no real choice, he called Curly earlier today and asked if he could pick up. Ever so politely, Curly told him to meet in this exact location at this exact time of night. When Curly was ready, he’d then text him to walk down the alley and through the door for the actual purchase. Needless to say, Sherman’s heart was racing.

The door wasn’t so much hidden as it was just the same color as the surrounding concrete walls; dark and grey. Sherman knocked on it once, it swung open a moment later, and he walked on inside with a gulp, praying that he’d see the outside again before too long.

There was a large, rough looking biker standing on the other side of the door. Sherman went to speak, but he just pointed down the stairs, into the cellar. Sherman obeyed with a small nod.

The cellar itself had been converted into a sort of clubhouse, although it wasn’t any sort of club that Sherman would want to be a part of. Cigarette and cigar smoke hung thick in the air and had Sherman coughing the moment his feet hit the cement flooring. The walls were all adorned in club memorabilia, with a giant Hades Angels’ flag at its center. There was a pool table too, a bar down the end, and even a poker table.

Sherman did a quick count in his head of how many men there were, as if knowing might give him some chance of survival. There were at least fifteen that he could see, although some parts