Easy Towne

By R. Andrew Booth

Easy Towne, a newly released convict finds himself taking on a new caper using his special safe cracking skills. He is working for a man he doesn't know, with a woman he doesn't trust, stealing from the biggest arms dealer in North America. The Department of Homeland Security is involved in some way, making for a truly interesting few weeks for Easy. This is not the fresh start he wanted.

Easy is a safe cracker from the old school. He uses skill and abnormally sensitive fingers rather than brute force to open what is locked safely away. On his release from prison, Easy wants nothing more than to disappear, but is almost immediately given an offer of a new caper too good to refuse. Despite his better judgement, Easy takes the job.

The man that set up the job, Varga, sends his employee, Lana to help Easy and to make sure he finishes the job. Lana is an accomplished killer as well as exceptionally beautiful. Easy becomes increasingly attracted to Lana and at the same time begins to question her motives more and more.

The target of this little caper, Stoltz, is the largest arms dealer in North America. He owns his own little inland island, a virtual fortress where the vault that Easy must open is located. Stoltz has a reputation as being viscious and brutal, none of his business associates have been known to have lived past their involvement with Stoltz.

Stoltz and Varga are both somehow involved with the Department of Homeland Security, and the government decides to make the government's interest made known to Easy. The job becomes more than Easy bargained for.

This is the first in the series of Easy Towne stories.

• Language: English
• Publisher: R. Andrew Booth
• Release date: Dec 24, 2011
• ISBN: 9781465702920

R. Andrew Booth

R. Andrew Booth, a Louisiana native, now lives and works in Central Florida. He is a graduate of Columbia College with a degree in political science and a minor in history. He married his high school sweetheart twenty-two years ago and lives with her and asundry pets.

Book preview

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Easy Towne

by R. Andrew Booth

Copyright 2011 R. Andrew Booth

Smashwords Edition

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Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

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About the Author

R. Andrew Booth, a native of Louisiana, now lives and works in Central Florida. A graduate of Columbia College, he served in the United States Army and has travelled extensively in Europe and around the United States. He lives with his wife, his high school sweetheart of twenty-two years. Look for new stories from the author online at www.fallenmanproductions.com.

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Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Epilogue

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Chapter 1

The sun was rising. It was as if it was the first sunrise that Easy had ever seen. The sky at the horizon began to glow a dull orange, gradually turning into a brilliant yellow as the sun broke the horizon and filled the morning sky with brilliance. In a very real way, this was the first sunrise of Easy’s life. It was the sunrise he was seeing on the day he was to be released from prison.

Easy moved back from the barred window through which he watched the sun rise. The cold bars of the prison over the window intruded into his view of the pastoral scene once he moved back from the window. He was still in prison. The entire place was designed to enforce that fact. He was not free. Someone else, they, controlled when he ate, when he slept, even what he could see. Soon it would be over.

The sun was fully risen now, the rays bringing the first heat of the day to Easy’s cell. It would not be long now; they would come for him and tell him that he was a free man once more. He had not slept the entire night. He remembered everything, every moment of his six years of incarceration. He remembered seeing the beatings, the revenge gang killings, the drug deals. Inside was worse than outside on the streets. Despite all the dangers in prison, Easy had remained above it all, unscathed. It was as if someone was watching over him, a guardian that kept him unharmed in this cage.

Prisoner 351770714! Towne! yelled the pudgy guard as he walked down the rows of solitary confinement cells. The guard, Monroe, Easy seemed to think was his name, clearly enjoyed the ringing of his own voice off the cold stone and steel of the solitary confinement ward.

Here! Easy said as he stuck his hand through the small slot in the door of his cell. The air in the hallway between the cells was much cooler than the stifling air in Easy’s cell. The sun had not reached its rays that far yet.

Getting out today, Towne. You get ten minutes to shower and shave. Maybe your clothes will still fit, said Monroe.

The guard shoved a neatly wrapped package through the slot in Easy’s cell door. Why he did not wait to give Easy the package when he unlocked the cell door a moment later Easy would never know. Easy opened the package to reveal the clothes that he had worn into this prison six years ago. The suit was still in style, black, not flashy, classic men’s wear.

The heavy metal door that locked Easy in his cell for the last six years swung open with a loud creak on the massive hinges. The door was secured with a simple dead-bolt six tumbler lock, simple enough to compromise, but Easy had never seen a reason to waste the time in opening his cell door himself. Even if he had gotten out of his cell, where was there to go but the cold hallway? Beyond that there was a secured common room then the rest of the prison. Even further out, there was the unforgiving Louisiana swampland. Escape had never had good odds.

Easy let himself be shackled and led to the showers for the last time. It would be simple enough to slip the cuffs, a little surprise for fat Monroe, but this late in the game, it would do nothing but piss the guard off. So Easy endured the final indignation on his way to a shower and freedom.

The other inmates peered from their cells as Easy shuffled in that prisoner half-step the leg irons forced you to use. None of the caged eyes spoke and Easy spoke to none of them. They did not know him and he did not want to know any of them. Thinking back over the last six years, he thought it strange that he had not even found a single person to call friend in this hell hole. He had not been hated inside, more like shunned. Somehow the word had gotten out in the prison network: Ernest Z. Towne was not to be touched. How this happened and who made it happen were both questions with no answers to Easy. After a time in this prison, he had stopped asking questions.

Easy and his escort guard arrived at the showers. It was the first time that Easy had seen this particular room not filled with tattooed prisoners attempting to look mean while standing around naked showering. Easy could remember witnessing some horrors in this room that he had previously found unimaginable. Rapes, torturing, general mayhem and beatings; the showers were a dangerous place for prisoners. Again Easy wondered why he, alone it seemed, had been spared these brutalities while in prison.

Ten minutes, no more, free man, the guard said, then left.

Easy quickly stripped and turned three of the showers on as hot as he could stand the water. It felt good to relax in the hot water spray. He tried to let the water wash away the stiffness from six years of confinement in an eight by eight foot box. He thought that he would find a convertible when he got out, something that would never box him in. He’d live in that car if he had to. The shampoo and even the rough, hard soap felt exquisite now that he was about to be free.

He finished his shower and thought about a shave, running his hand across his rough two day beard. He’d skip the shave and enjoy the hot water for three more minutes. It’s not like pudgy little Monroe was going to toss him out on the street naked, so Easy enjoy the first real shower he’d taken in this prison.

Time’s up, Towne! Get your con ass dressed, Monroe hollered into the shower.

Easy emerged from the shower drying his hair with a towel. Six years of prison had given him a certain immodesty when walking naked around prison guards. He made no attempt to cover his nakedness. Like Adam in the beginning, Easy forgot to be ashamed of his naked body. Prison will do that to you.

Get dressed, convict. We’re late already, Monroe said and left the