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

Now however... well, it was different. The fear was gone. The panic was over. Now, Sherman was in the habit of treating his meetings with Curly like he would any other business meeting; he was cool, collected and just a little cocky.

It was a huge improvement to be sure, but at the same time, getting used to Curly, and what the two men were doing together, wasn’t a good thing. Not even close.

Sherman’s day started at 9:30am in an empty parking lot twenty minutes west of the city. It was one chosen specifically for its remoteness; a sort of concrete desert that hadn’t been used to its full potential in years. The buildings that surrounded it were abandoned, the closest suburb was kilometers away, and the few cars that were parked there when Sherman pulled in were either burned out or missing wheels.

None of this was new to Sherman however, seeing as he’d been coming here once a week for the past month. He directed his car to the center of the lot, right in the middle, pulled up, turned it off and waited. He was right on time but the person he was meeting was late, so he had a little time.

The time was spent sending off a quick little text to Bradley. Every time he did this, Sherman felt infinitely guilty about it – worse than guilty! He felt like he was spitting in his boyfriend’s face. To try and tip the scales back in his direction, he quickly wrote ‘Hope you have a great day.’ It wasn’t much... but it was something.

It was just as the message sent that Sherman heard the sound of a car engine approaching the lot. He looked up and spotted a black SUV headed straight for him. It was the same he met every week, which was expected. Sherman took a deep breath, climbed from his car and prepared for his first ‘meeting’ of the day.

The driver of the car was actually an old friend of Sherman’s, and when the SUV pulled over and he climbed out, the two men acted as such.

“Maaaaaaate.” The driver’s name was Andy, a half-Chinese half-Scottish pilot from Hong Kong. His skin was tanned, his face was squashed and frog-like, and his hair was styled in a top-knot that made him look like a Samurai. Andy slapped Sherman’s outstretched hand, and then pulled him into a hug.

“Hey, mate.” Sherman returned the greeting as the two men hugged and then separated. “Nice of you to make it.”

Andy blew through his lips. “Whatever — I thought the aim of the game was to not draw attention to myself? Like, I could have sped all the way here but —”

“I’m just joking,” Sherman assured him, holding his hands up in surrender. “But if Curly asks, I’m throwing you under the bus. Just so you know.”

Andy shuddered. “Fuck that dude gives me the creeps – I don’t know how you go seeing him every week. I can’t think of anything worse.”

“You get used to it,” Sherman shrugged.

“Yeah, the same way POW’s get used to torture, I’m sure.” For a moment, Andy laughed silently at his joke, shaking his head at the thought. Then, as if suddenly struck by lightning, he straightened up and clapped his hands together. “Well, shall we?”

“I didn’t come all the way out here to look at your ugly mug.”

“Nah, that’s just a bonus, hey.”

“Whatever helps you sleep at night, mate.”

Andy rolled his eyes and started his way back toward the car, but to the trunk this time. As he popped it open, “I do love this little back and forth we share, you know? It makes the whole thing that much easier to bear.”

Sherman strolled up beside him, looking into the trunk, but already knowing what to expect. “Oh yeah? You don’t mind breaking the law, so much as you get the odd laugh out of it?”

“Something like that.”

Inside the trunk were two black suitcases, laying down flat, looking like they were just about ready to burst. Without asking for permission, Sherman unzipped the two cases and was unsurprised to see them stuffed full of men’s clothes, Andy’s clothes. The clothes weren’t what Sherman was after, it’s what was underneath them...

“Do I just...?” Sherman dug his hands into the suitcase and prepared to heave a pile of the clothing from the case and into the spare space in the trunk.

“Go for it,” Andy shrugged. “They’re just my cousins' old clothes anyway. He won’t mind.”

“Does your cousin know what they’re being used for?” Sherman started emptying the clothes out.

“Do I care?”

“Good point.”

With all the clothes out of the cases and stacked in the trunk, they looked like empty, regular old suitcases. Sherman knew this wasn’t the case. Grinning to himself, he felt around the seams of the cases, inside, until he found the hidden zippers. Next, he proceeded to unzip them, revealing a hidden compartment in the base of both the suitcases. When he saw what was inside the compartments, his grin widened.

“Hello,” he beamed.

“You like?”

“Me like.”

Cocaine. The suitcases were filled with large bricks of premium, uncut, very hard to smuggle into the country cocaine. Well, it would have been hard to smuggle into the country, were in not for Sherman... and, fairly, Andy too.

Sherman had become a drug smuggler. There was no pretty way to say it, so he just had to state it as fact. Although, if he were pressed, he’d refer to himself as a drug connect; he didn’t actually smuggle the drugs into the country. Nor did he sell them. Rather, he was a middleman between the smuggler and the seller. It was a fine line, but one that Sherman happily walked. He had no choice!

It had started with a simple phone call. That was all. Curly wanted Sherman