Father Lucifer, a novel in progress
A novel in progress by John Barnes. Roughly 2000 word chunks posted every Tuesday. Aggregated into chapters now and then for the convenience of people joining later. Since it's a blog, start reading with the oldest posts first. Genre is hardboiled mystery,language and subject matter not kid-suitable.
Sunday, February 19, 2012
A brief interruption, and one heck of a place to leave a freshly kidnapped girlfriend
This'll teach me to do anything interesting, ever. Literally the day after posting the first action-heavy scene in Father Lucifer, chaos of an almost entirely good
kind (CAEGK, which sounds like a noise a cat makes bringing up a
hairball) erupted into my life. This is rather like what some other
writers refer to as a Sekrit Project, which is probably a reference to
something or other that I missed along the way. Anyway, can't talk
about it yet, will be great if it happens, and won't know for a couple
few weeks I think ... but I should be back on the regular job around
Wednesday or Thursday, and all blogs will resume normality shortly after
that. So meanwhile Hal's unconscious, Stacy is kidnapped, and Breit is still a gross old poop, but Hal will just have to depend on him anyway, because he is the only Good Guy on his feet at the moment. Might get something in late this week but will probably let it ride around till Tuesday the 28th.
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Father Lucifer, End of Chapter 3
Night was rushing across the sky, swarming over the
last glints of sun that poked out between the mountains, with a chill coming
on. Stacy pressed close to me and I put my arm around her. That was nice.
"Here's the thing," she said. "I had
this idea that I could get away from my idiot parents and steps, once and for
all, if I could just make one good score. You know how good that can
sound."
"Oh, yeah. Thought you said it wasn't
drugs."
"It wasn't."
I thought for a long second about several things I
didn't want to think about, and decided to stay real neutral. "So the deal
went south."
"Way south. The people I was dealing with knew
my old history, and it was too late to back out."
I didn't know her old history but this didn't seem
like the time to ask.
She rubbed her head on my shoulder. "It's just
hard to tell you about it, is
all. I know you would never judge me but the whole thing is dumb and
embarrassing, and I just hate to think about telling you."
"Then don't," I said. "Tell me when
you want to, if you ever do. Doesn't matter to us being friends." It's
easy to be all understanding and shit when you have no idea what you're talking
about, and don't want to.
We didn't talk the rest of the way to Chivington
Hall. It was getting dark fast now, long shadows from the trees and the campus
buildings throwing freezing night across the lawns and walks. The colors were
mostly gone except for the indigo sky with a couple stars out. Stacy took a
minute to untie her sweater from her waist and slip into it, and put an arm
around my waist. I lay my arm over her bony little shoulders. If this was going
to be a regular thing I was totally down with it.
We walked on past the Fieldhouse. I thought about
introducing her to Coach Park, like meet the folks, and was just beginning to
look up at a bright star over in the east and think Star light, star bright
… since for once I knew what I
might wish for, when I realized we were almost to Chivington. "Hey, after
Nasty John's tonight, can you give me a ride home?"
"For sure," I said. "If the game
doesn't finish before closing time, they're all such chivalrous old gomers, if
I ask for twenty minutes to drive you home, all you have to do is stand beside
me, show'em some big scared eyes—"
"I've been pointing big eyes at older men ever
since I found out I liked ice cream cones." she said.
That seriously creeped me. I'd been joking but it
didn't quite sound like she was.
Her class was upstairs, mine was downstairs, so we
let go of each other at the big swooping staircase with the huge wood
balustrade that runs up the center of Chivington, not quite kissing, but at
least one of us was having the thought.
I usually take good notes but this time I didn't
even do much of a job copying the board. I think the prof talked about logic
and I think he was in favor of it.
At judo practice, I had the worst case of monkey
mind I'd had in years, with that Liz Phair song about being already wet and
gonna go swimming stuck in my head. I was so out of it during uchikomis that I
was losing my breath control, holding my breath instead of using it for power,
and after the third time Coach Park caught me, he said, "Why can't you
breathe?" and after that I
couldn't have had more of a monkey mind if you'd planted a banana tree in my
skull.
Well, though my head wasn't in it, at least my ass
got a workout. The shower felt great for the thirty seconds or so I allowed
myself, and then I threw myself into my clothes, slammed that locker door, and
was off to Nasty John's like a cruise missile with a late payment.
Stacy had grabbed a table near the counter and
strewn it with books and papers, sitting cross-legged on her chair, in
slippers, a huge-on-her Pitkin College sweatshirt, and baggy pants that I
suspected were pajamas.
I slipped an arm around her shoulders as I passed
and said, "I won't be out here much, have to stay by the door to the back
room, but though you won't see me, I'm here, and I'll wave from the
counter."
"Sort of like the love of God, except he
rarely waves from the counter." She slipped an arm around me to return the
hug.
"He's dealing with a longer line," I
said.
I looked up and Gayle was laughing. "That's
not only cute, it's the first thing from work I could quote to my
minister," she said. "Don't worry, Hal, I'll make sure no one steals
your girlfriend."
I thought about explaining that Stacy wasn't and
then decided I didn't want to.
"Gotta yalla, set-ups are complicated and there's not much
time." I squeezed Stacy's shoulder again. It would have been another
perfect time to kiss her, just a friendly small kiss to definitely establish
the obvious. But, what the hell, I did have to hurry, and building tension is always good, right?
As I was fetching my sideboard stuff in from the
kitchen, only Dr. Lang and Breit were in the back room. It was all the things
they liked—for most of the night I'd be in the chair beside the door, and
they'd ring the bell when they wanted me to come in to make sandwiches or
salads or whatnot, a few times an hour. Sometimes I'd have to go out to the
fountain, the stove, or the coffee counter to make up something special.
Bonafide, I loved Wednesday nights. First of all, I wasn't on the clock, and
Breit would just hand me five twenties at the end of the night. Can't beat
that. It also wasn't much work. The Risk Club were all clean as cats, so at the
end I'd just cover the serving dishes and stack them in the cooler, load the
dishwasher, and hit the table with a rag and the floor with a mop. Mostly,
between bells, I sat in my chair by the door and read any old thing that was
highly interruptible.
That night, I laid out the trays and the serving
tools, quick and neat, and was just setting out plates, glasses, and cups when
Breit said, "Hey, Dim, hypothetical question. Suppose we're in here
playing and someone tries to come through that door you're sitting by. What do
you do?"
"You mean kitchen staff or counter people?
They know not to do that so I guess I'd just remind them."
"Sure. And if it's a stranger?"
"They shouldn't be back here anyway, so I'd
already be asking them what they were looking for and steering them back toward
where they belong."
"And if they don't want to be steered,
Dim?"
"I'd steer them. Look, Breit, be real. If six
armed commandos with a battering ram show up to take the door down, I'm going
under a table like anyone with half a brain would. Ain't nothing about dying in
my job description. But if it's just some lost, pushy dork, or some guy with no
good excuse? You'd never know he'd tried. "
Breit was bobbing his head up and down vigorously,
like he was trying to smear some of his ugliness on an invisible window in
front of him, the way he did when he felt like the world understood him.
"See, Peter, I told you. I don't have to explain things to Dim, he just
knows. Like this morning when he wisely ignored all my attempts at
influence-peddling and just got a carry permit by the fastest, simplest
possible means. And trust me, if I'd just explained the Official Nasty John's
Policy on Rude Intruders During Risk Club Meetings, he'd have tuned me out,
paid no attention, and then done the right thing anyway."
Dr. Lang nodded slowly, seriously, the way he did
in class when someone gave a better answer than he was expecting. "I
suppose I am just not used – "
A knock at the back door. I slid back the
peeper-slider thing that Breit called the "Judas" and saw Coach Park,
so I opened it and let him in.
"See?" Breit said. "Told him once to
always use the Judas, and ever since, Dim does. It does not do a damn bit of
good to joggle the boy's elbow."
I guess that was a vote of confidence, just
expressed as obnoxiously as possible,
"The Boy" thought.
As he always did, Coach Park bowed and then shook
hands with everyone, including me. He was formal even for a Korean.
"Hal," he said, "you were not focused tonight. Are you sick? Got
trouble at home? Or are you in love?"
My expression must have been pretty funny; they
were all laughing.
Dr. Lang said, "Hal, don't let this old
charlatan play head games with you. Coach Park is not using the secret powers
of the mysterious Orient to read your mind. He and I were chatting in his
office, just before I taught my class, and I was gossiping like an old yenta,
you know, about you and the beauteous Ms. Hilburn, and he looked out from his
office in the Fieldhouse and saw the two of you walking together. Do not let either this horrid lecherous old troll or this low-rent Obi wan-Kenobi persecute you for
having a love life."
That was nice of him, but a pack of old farts
noticing that Stacy was hot was still fucking creepy. I tried to think of some
super-polite way to say, "fuck off" to Breit and Park that would also
indicate, "please don't talk about that" to Dr. Lang.
Another knock.
I checked the Judas; of course it was Backdoor Man.
He said "Good evening, Hal," in a formal way, in a voice that sounded
like he might have retired from the BBC.
As always, he shook my hand like we were old friends. He was a bit past
middle age, not so far you'd call him "old," with a deep red face, as
if he'd come in from the cold, heavily lined like he'd either spent a lot of time
outdoors or been a heavy smoker at one time.
I closed the door behind him and helped him out of
his coat, a Burberry leather calf-length that probably cost about twice what my
car was worth. The coat was old and soft from a lot of oiling and saddle soap;
I hung it on its particular wood hanger (the one Breit had told me to always
use) with reverence.
Backdoor Man himself was like that coat;
understated, so that you wouldn't notice him unless you looked carefully, but
when he entered, three brainy guys who each thought the rest of the human race
was their inferiors (and of course Dr. Lang and Coach Park were right), who
normally had no respect for anyone, would act like this was the True King of
Elfland returning in some cheap fantasy book.
Without being asked, I went out to the coffee
counter (a chance to wave at Stacy, who waved back and made my heart float),
pulled a double espresso, added a shot of crème de cacao syrup and a half shot
of vanilla essence, covered the top with a saucer, and carried it back to
deliver it perfectly hot. At the sideboard I added a shot of Myers Dark Rum and
set it at Backdoor Man's place. He lifted it, sipped, smiled like I'd just sunk
ten Spanish galleons for him or brought him the head of a dragon, and said,
"Thank you, Hal, perfect." He glanced around as if seeing the board
and setup for the first time, and then said, "Well, gentlemen, shall we
see who can lose the world tonight, and if it is a world well lost?"
"Anything to order while Hal is here?"
Breit asked.
"Hot tuna on baguette with the usual,"
Dr. Lang said.
"Same for me," Coach said.
I went to the kitchen to fix those up. While the
toaster oven ran, through the kitchen door, I could see how Stacy's hair fell
along the curve of her neck.
I was just pulling the split baguettes, toasted to
medium, from the toaster oven, and laying on provolone in thick slices, when
Lance demanded, "Hey, Dim, what's that?" from the counter.
"It's a toaster oven," I said, because
playing dumb was often the best way to get rid of him.
"Ha ha, Dim, don't play dumb."
Well, it used to be.
"I'm waiting on a private party in the
back," I said. "This isn't on our regular menu, just on our catering
menu."
"Yeah, but Dim, you got all the stuff to make
one, so you could just sell me one tonight – "
"Nope," I said, laying thin slices of
tuna steak on one side of each baguette, brushing them with Italian dressing,
and returning them to the still-hot toaster oven. "Regular menu only in
the shop."
Lance was a libertarian so he gave me a two-minute
harangue about how this was contrary to the self-interest of Nasty John's and
of me personally. I had hoped to go out and say hi to Stacy, but I didn't want
to have to try to get past Lance twice when the timing to get this right was
kind of delicate, so I stood there and tried not to listen while he explained
that I was a communist because I wasn't making him the exact sandwich he wanted
right now even though he had the money.
I opened the oven door for just a second to slide
in the tops of the baguettes so the cheese could melt; the Italian dressing was
sizzling on the tuna steaks, so that looked about right. A minute later, I
pulled it all back out, set fresh tomato slices into the melted cheese on the
tops, sprinkled it with basil and gave it all a squirt of yellow mustard. I
closed the sandwiches up, heading back to get them to Dr. Lang and Coach Park
while the tomatoes were still cold and firm (I sometimes thought that instead
of the Risk Club they ought to call themselves the Fussy Eaters Association).
"Hey, Dim, I still had a question to ask you
and you didn't tell me why – "
I realized he was following me behind the counter,
but before I had time to turn around and bark at him, little Gayle went after
four-hundred pound Lance like an X-wing after the Death Star, chewing him out
for going behind the counter and for calling me "Dim" when that was
Breit's prerogative and for believing all that silly crap about markets and
freedom was more important than simple good manners, and I think finishing up
with telling him to wash his hands before dinner and sit up straight when he
ate.
Maybe she wouldn't win the Customer Service Trophy
this month. But then we didn't have one anyway; what would be the point, at
Nasty John's?
"Uproar out there?" Breit asked.
"Lance decided to come behind the counter and
make us all be libertarian and Gayle dealt with it," I said, and explained
what had happened. "I want to revise my answer, Mr. Breit. I should have
said that if it was six armed commandos I'd turn them over to Gayle and she'd
make them wipe their feet, take off their hats, and say please. Never mess with
an experienced mommy."
Breit roared. "See, everyone, I told you he
plays rough when he needs to. Good answer, Dim, and it sounds like that Gayle's
a keeper."
I went back to my chair by the door. For the next
couple hours, between bells and messing with food, I read the stuff for Dr.
Lang's Former Soviet Republics class in case I needed to talk to him about
anything as the party broke up, but it all seemed young-chimp easy. I moved on
to this week's book for comp lit. It was about this woman dirt farmer, and how
bad it sucked to have a shitload of kids and be poor and work your ass
off. I had to admit that there
were some kids in the class that that seemed to be news to.
The lady that taught the class really liked to hear
guys say how close they were to their mothers and had decided I had a
"real cool mom" based on my description of how the place was always
in chaos but there was always plenty of pot and music (if old hippie shit like
the Dead is music). Also, she
thought my having been in prison was cool. So I dog-eared and highlighted a
couple of pages that sort of reminded me of my mother, and another page that
reminded me of a guy I'd known in the pen, and was readier than I needed to be.
Every few minutes the little bell would ding and
I'd go in to fix something up; it looked like Breit's black pieces were
gradually gaining ground, but with Vietnam Rules, things flip and change.
At last Coach Park was eliminated, his final
redoubt in South America overrun. Breit said, "We're going to talk late, tonight, Hal, so pull us one
more pot of coffee and bring clean cups, and I'll do the last cleanup back
here."
I wrapped the food trays and put them back into the
cooler, and shoved the dishes into the dishwasher along with the last few Gayle
was bringing in from out front; I checked it all over and she'd done a good job
closing down, and I told her she was working out great. "Even though I can't get rid of
that one girl?" she asked, pointing at Stacy.
"I'll take care of that one personally. Clock out, take off, bravo on your
first full day, and I'm so glad you're here."
"Strangely enough, so am I. G'night, Hal, and thanks."
Stacy had just gotten her regular shoes back on and
her backpack loaded. She reached
out and took my hand. I walked out of Nasty John's pretty much floating on air,
carefully locking the door behind us.
Listening as Stacy tried to explain her honors
thesis was sort of a challenge, because I for-def wanted her to understand I
was interested in it, but I was mostly thinking about when to kiss her.
I was loving her soft voice, the intense
concentration on that beautiful face, the play of shadows and light from the
streetlamps and the shrouded, blurry moon, and I think even the slight scent of
tired-out-girl that came off Stacy and mingled with the wet, cold wind off the
mountains that promised an abrupt change in the weather by tomorrow's dawn.
She was trying to explain what marginal
propensities had to do with swing voters when something hit the back of my head
so hard that I was flung forward bodily onto the sidewalk.
Years of martial arts made me whip up my forearms,
meaty side out, and turn my face, so I merely took a hard bump on my cheek, and
my arms just stung. I gasped, "What?"
Stacy's scream brought me back into it. I made my
numb arms shove at the ground, though I could barely feel the grit of the
sidewalk on my bare palms, and dragged my feet in under me.
A man was trying to push Stacy into the open back
door of a car, but she'd gotten a grip on the doorframe and the door and was
kicking at him. I staggered forward, my breath rushing out in a cat scream,
trying to get momentum and balance before taking the guy, and then I fell again
as the guy behind me hit the back of my knees with his bat.
I skidded forward, shocking my arms some more,
tearing through sleeves and into skin. I rolled and got my feet together,
pointed up at the asshole with the bat.
It hadn't really registered on my brain that I was in
a fight. I just needed him to cut
this shit out so I could get to Stacy.
He tried to go around my legs to get at my head,
and I twisted, lunged with my feet, and crab-scissored his trailing leg, the
reverse way against the joint, where the low leg sweeps the ankle forward and
the high one slams the knee back. That's a major foul in a tournament but I
didn't see any ref.
He fell back and I heard the bat clatter on the
sidewalk, but I had continued my crab-scissors into a hard roll away from him
and now I was up on all fours, trying to get to Stacy.
Right where her hand gripped the door, that fucker
she was fighting kicked hard with the heel of his boot. Her hand dropped from
the doorframe and before she could get her arm up to cover, he'd reached behind
her neck, yanked her head back by the hair, and twisted hard.
His other fist thudded into her floating ribs,
sounding like a rabbit under a tire, and she folded around that with a harsh
seal-bark.
He lifted her by the shirt to throw her in
backwards. I was about halfway there and not going to be in time.
That's when Coach Park hit him from behind,
throwing him away from the car, and Stacy started to sit up. For a second it
looked like the good guys were winning, even if I felt like I was swimming
toward Stacy through thick, dirty syrup.
There was a bright flash and bang and Park was
rolling on the ground. The asshole with the bat rushed past me, half-skipping
to favor his aching knee, grabbed Stacy by the throat, and shoved her backwards
into the car, dove in after her, and slammed the door. The man who had just
shot Coach Park jumped into the front seat on the passenger side, yelling
"Move! Move! Move!"
The car peeled out. Park rolled to his feet and
gave the rear fender a kick hard enough to leave a deep dent, all spite and no
effect.
As the car zoomed through the stop sign, I could
still see thrashing and struggling through the rear window.
They pulled a hard left and burned rubber for a
whole block the wrong way on a one-way street. I couldn't see the car anymore but to judge by the dwindling
roar of its engine they had headed south on University Boulevard.
I started to pitch forward but Breit's big arm
caught me, and his other hand gripped mine and turned me to hold me upright,
like we were doing a promenade step. "We've got to get you to the
emergency room," he said. "You've probably got a concussion and god
knows what else."
"Coach?" I asked.
Coach Park's shoulder went under my other arm, and
now they were supporting me between them. "You know that turn and drop I
always say is the last resort if someone tries to shoot you in the torso
point-blank? The one I say will never work? It worked."
I was stretched out between them – they were both
big men – but my feet were finding the ground, and I staggered along while we
played silly games like how many fingers and what day of the week is it. I was
having a hard time remembering what this was all about; I was so tired.
I asked, "Dr. Lang?"
Coach Park said, "The gentleman we don't
mention is coaching him through calling the police and appearing to be a
completely innocent witness. We were able to get the license plate number, and
the gentleman we don't mention will also be making inquiries of his own. Now,
how many fingers?"
"I have a car, how come Breit—"
"You're going to the hospital," Coach
Park said.
"We need your head looked at," Breit
added.
"Stacy?" She and I had been going to do
something together, I remembered, and if I was going to the hospital I might
not be able to keep our date.
"We're working on that." Breit's tone was
so grim it scared me.
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
Father Lucifer, Beginning of Chapter 3
Chapter 3
The Tree Trunk Grill was not some diner they fixed
up to be all nostalgic and shit. It was your basic college dump, with a worn
out counter, low enough to have regular chairs at it, and booths around the
outside that were about half naugahyde and half duct tape.
"Tiny Tim" Brady, the old fat guy that
ran it, was this big‑ass sports fan. Also a very enthusiastic one. But only for
the sports and teams he approved of: football and basketball, DU Pioneers, CU,
and the Denver pro teams. A minor‑sport tiny‑college player like me was
normally invisible to him, except when he felt like being a jerk to an ex‑con,
or trying to mack on a girl who was a third of his age and half his weight.
Unfortunately he felt like doing both tonight.
He led off by saying Stacy could sit up front by
him at the counter, and asking her to stay between me and the cash register.
Stacy's big toothy smile could have flash‑frozen
helium. "Not tonight, Tiny, we'll need a booth for some intelligent conversation." He hated being called
"Tiny," and would only put up with it from football players and
pretty girls.
On our way back to a corner table, I recognized a
beautiful old long red leather coat at the counter. "Hey, Sergeant
Grouillon!"
Grouillon turned around, grinning, and said,
"Hey." He was a very dark‑skinned black man, taller than me and in
body‑builder shape, maybe fifty years old, but his face had so many wrinkles
and folds it looked like he bought it used and it didn't quite fit. Like
always, he was in a perfectly fitting masterpiece of a three‑piece suit, and
could have shaved looking into his shoes – though I'd never seen him in need of
a shave. "I'm off duty and I hope never to have to talk to you again when
I'm on duty, Hal. You can call me Sid."
"Sid, then. Hey, this is Stacy Hilburn. Stacy,
this is Detective Sergeant Sidney Grouillon. He's the guy who put me in prison and the guy who got me out."
"I just have trouble making up my mind,"
Grouillon said. "So, Hal, how's it going? Still doing that silly Japanese
wrestling in pajamas?"
"Still am. First tournament's in a couple
weeks. I can send you an email for some free tickets."
Grouillon beamed. "So, if I like boxing, am I
gonna like this?"
"You might. Especially since it's all weight
classes and half of us are girls. I still have your email, Ser‑uh, Sid. I'll
zap you the thing for getting the free tickets."
I had just thought about asking him what brought
him to this end of town when he gestured at his book. "I'm taking some
courses at Iliff."
"Thinking of becoming a minister or
something?"
"Not sure. It's just I'm hitting that age
where a guy starts to think he might die someday, and going to a strip club
after work with a bunch of other cops doesn't seem to address the old mortality
thing the way it used to."
"You never did that."
"How would you know, Hal? You only ever saw me
on duty."
"Where I heard about your wife Marilyn. Who
would kill you."
"Well, yeah." He smiled at Stacy.
"Hal and I both have a lot of trouble fooling each other. But he's a
better guy than he looks like. Really."
She laughed and said that the only person in the
world who didn't know that was me; he agreed with her, and we all shook hands
like old friends. He went back to spooning up his big bowl of chili and hi‑liting
his copy of A Critical and Exegetical Commentary
on the Book of Psalms.
Stacy and me sat down at a booth in the corner and
ordered massive greaseburgers with plastic cheese and a lot of salady glop on
top, a huge basket of fries to split, and a pot of coffee for the table. We
shoved all that crap down like mad cannibals, got the coffee pot refilled, and
settled back to talk while we got in enough caffeine to head off the food coma.
"You're going to be up all night with as much coffee as you're putting
down," Stacy observed. "How late is your late shift?"
"Hard to predict but late. It's a Risk Club night."
"Risk Club?"
"One of Breit's things."
"All right, now who's Breit?"
"John Breit. Nasty John. The owner of Nasty
John's, I mean. He is named
John and he's definitely nasty.
Wednesday nights, him and Coach Park and Dr. Lang – and some others you
wouldn't know," I said, a little awkwardly because I was remembering I
wasn't supposed to ever say anything about the existence of Backdoor Man,
"they get together and play a big game of Risk in the back private party
room, and they need a discreet waiter, I guess, so Dr. Lang can top up his
coffee with Meyers dark rum, and Breit can say all kinds of politically
incorrect stuff, and they can all be a special super secret club with NO GURLZ
on the clubhouse door. "
"So you're their private waiter?"
"Yep, and I have to get there before Coach
Park does, because he likes to start on time and I have to be all set up by the
time he gets there. He lets me out of practice ten minutes earlier than usual,
then I run over to Nasty John's and get things going. Anyway, I'll be up till
midnight at best, maybe four at worst, and that's why I'm scarfing so much coffee. What's your excuse?"
"All‑nighter, or almost an all‑nighter. "
Just shitting her, I waggled a finger at her and
said, "Dangers of procrastination, young lady."
She looked pissed. She pulled out one of those little calendar
notebooks and held it out, flipping through pages. They were covered, in ball point and pencil and like a dozen colors
of flairs, going way back into the summer. Either the girl was crazy busy or
she was putting all her time into faking up her Day‑Timer.
"I'm an asshole," I said.
She shrugged. "It's okay. I just get tired of
how people assume that if a student is on short time and sleep it's because
they procrastinate."
"I'm sorry. Really."
She shrugged again, a little one‑shoulder motion
with her mouth screwed up funny, and said, "Sorry, you just caught some
built‑up anger. I get that shit from so many people, why I bother with hard crap
since I'm rich."
"But you're not," I said.
"My mom and stepdad're rich and I grew up rich." She was looking at her coffee cup like
it was a crystal ball. "So look, the thing I wanted to talk to you about,
you're really the only person I know I can talk to about it, and – she turned
and looked. "All right, your policeman friend is gone."
"You've got some serious shit to talk
about?"
"Well, it wouldn't've been cool with him
here." She seemed to think for a moment. "I'm gonna take the pot up
and get us fresh coffee, and then I'll tell you all about it. Really. You stay
here."
"I'm not going anywhere."
She went up to get the table pot refilled, and I
thought about how the most awkward conversations in the world are sometimes the
easiest, because there's nothing to say except the most obvious shit. It had
been that way when I first met Grouillon.
§
Denver Jail is such a nasty armpit of a hole that
later on when I went to real prison at Cañon City it was a relief. I was stuck
in the jail because Momster sure didn't have money for bail, the cash from my
desk drawer was still being held as evidence in case they decided to send me
away for an extra twenty years, and even if I'd had money, I couldn't see
paying a bondsman. So I just slept and read, with visits from Leigh whenever
she could catch a bus from Englewood. She'd talk nonstop and I'd listen; you'd
be amazed how interesting it can be, what goes on in seventh grade.
Then five days before sentencing, my public
defender lawyer, who hadn't talked to me since the trial, had me brought to a
conference room to tell me that I could talk to a cop about some kind of deal,
and she'd vouch he'd keep his word if I kept mine. I said I'd talk to him,
maybe just because I was bored.
So I met Detective Sergeant Sidney Grouillon. His
eyes were big and soft‑looking but his upper lip had a scar I didn't want to
ask about. For a cop his suit was about two grades too good, and his shoes were
better. He had about the most perfect pencil mustache I've ever seen, even
across that scar. The guy was seriously groomed.
He introduced himself, gave me a big paper cup of
coffee from his own thermos – way too strong but fresh and hot, and looked
straight at me. "You know a guy like me thinks a guy like you is a piece
of shit. Question is, what kind of a piece of shit do you want to be, Hal? You
know what I mean by that?"
"No, sir, I don't."
"Well, you don't have many options. You're
stuck being a piece of shit for a while. But there's different kinds you can
be. One kind you can be, you can be the wildass dumb kid that got some nice
Asian people's precious baby daughter into drugs and then killed, and go away
for a few years to Cañon City, and come back and try to be a bonafide thug,
instead of a pretend one, till you go down for good.
"Another kind of piece of shit, more
respectable, is when you get out you'll bag groceries and go to night school,
find yourself a woman that'll take a loser for a husband.
"Or you can be the third kind."
I'd been in school all my life; I knew a cue line
when I heard one. "What's the other kind?"
"You can be a piece of rat shit. Snitch on all
the assholes you know anything about. Testify when I need you to."
"And then what happens?" I asked.
"Well, you will be all out of friends." He waited. When I
didn't react, he added, "And you might have to be all out of Denver, depending on who you give
me, how their friends feel about it, and like that. You know better than me.
But you can be out of the pen a lot sooner, and you do have some people – I
don't know why, and they are not people I like much, but they're not crooks as
far as I know – people that want to give you a fresh start when you get out. So
here's the deal I got for you: testify, go in, behave perfect, nineteen months
to parole. And your mystery friends say there will be something or other
waiting for you when you get out."
So I thought for about one nanosecond. Maybe less.
I'd rather be a piece of shit with something than a piece of shit with nothing.
I told Grouillon everything I knew, came to eight
trials to testify, heard about snitches get stitches all the time, but they didn't let other prisoners
get near me unwatched, and I was big, young, and strong, so it was all talk. I
did all the perfect‑prisoner stuff for nineteen months and now here I was.
§
Stacy came back with the fresh pot of coffee.
"I was just going to ask you about Neil Restock. He's hanging around my
roommate Tammy—trial boyfriend or a convenient hookup, I'm not sure which.
There's something he can do for me, and I have to decide whether I want him to.
What do you know about him?"
I just told the truth. "Neil's one of those
burb‑wiggas who went through high school pretending to be gangsta, then hung
around a half‑ass college, fucking chicks that were so dumb they not only
wanted to date a gangsta, they fell for his act. Another dorm‑and‑club dealer
like me. I only saw him a couple times in Cañon City. Is he still a fake
gangsta or did he get Jesus?"
She giggled. "No Jesus. Neil is definitely not into Jesus. And there is something he can help me out with – "
"If you want to buy drugs I can find you a
guy."
"Not that."
"That's the only thing I know that Neil can be
any help with."
She reached out and took my hand. "You're mad
because if someone is going to do something for me, you want it to be you,
don't you?"
I don't know where I found the nerve to look right
in her eyes. "Yes."
It was worth it; she got this great smile.
"Well, stop fretting. This has to do with some contacts he has. I got
involved in some real messed up shit myself, years ago, stuff I could have gone
to jail for. It's not quite over but if I can pay the right person – through a
cutout – then it could all be
done with. And Neil knows the right person. Can he keep his mouth shut?"
"I would keep any secret I had to," I
said, "and nothing you told me could make me stop being your friend. And I'm a meaner bastard than Neil, they wouldn't fuck
with me like they might with him."
Stacy looked exasperated. Her hands squeezed mine
hard. "Hal, this has nothing to do with friendship, or courage, or skills,
because if it did I swear, I'd totally've come to you in the first place. I
don't need to buy something. I
need to buy someone, someone I
don't know who it is, and Neil can put me in touch with the person I need to
talk to. So I'm asking – can he keep his mouth shut?"
I looked up at the Tree Trunk's battered and
stained acoustic tile ceiling and thought out loud. "When I knew Neil, we
were both fucked up on something or other all the time. So you're getting my
idea of the dude two years later through, like, a chemical cloud, , but, well—he didn't rat out anyone before. I did. With Neil,
I'd be more worried that he might brag on things and blab your story to some
little megan‑from‑the‑burbs when he's trying to get into her pants. What's he like
around Tammy?"
"Always a story, but never a story he'd get
busted on, or anyone else would, and he totally wants into her pants—straight
guys always do."
"Then maybe you can trust him."
She was nodding with that beautiful serious look,
and I thought, okay, if angels don't look like Stacy Hilburn, I am not going
to heaven, not even with a signing bonus. "That's what I needed to know, Hal. Are you mad at me?"
"No. Walk with me, it's close to time for
class."
"Oh, shit, it is for me too. Is your class in Chivington?"
"Yeah."
"Mine too."
We
paid and left; Brady had a couple DU basketball players to fawn on so he was
busy and just let me have a no‑hassle exit. Or maybe he was finally getting
smart enough to be afraid of Stacy.
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
Father Lucifer, End of Chapter 2
§
Gayle
arrived looking terrified and excited, like anyone starting a job they have big
hopes for and really need. I introduced her to Breit. He stared a hole in her shirt
while he emphasized that everything on the menu was to be called only by the
godawful obscene name he'd given it.
Gayle
had warned us that she'd have to learn everything, and she did. Megan put her
through Cash Register 101 ("when in doubt, yell for help, and don't hand
people money without hitting some keys"). I walked her through how to make
the most common coffee drinks, how the tables were numbered, and what
abbreviations on order slips meant. By mid‑afternoon rush, though still slow
and easily confused, she was more help than not, so I figured she'd hang in
there.
At mid‑afternoon the usual swarm of
middle‑aged people with horn‑rims and piles of books, seminary students from
Iliff, piled up at the counter, just ahead of the Yakky Dumb Chicks, and the
line went most of the way to the door.
As
I was delivering a pot of Thick and Sticky Baby out to the patio, Stacy tagged
my shoulder. "Hey, once the crowd clears out, come by and say hi, I'm
doing a meeting thingie with Dr. Lang."
"Sure."
I parked the pot between three chunky middle‑aged women, all in half glasses,
jeans, and vests.
Processing the theological nerds took little time;
most of them just ordered black coffee (which Breit called Cheap, Wet, and
Dripping). That order, like
pursuing a masters in theology, is a pretty good indicator of a recent
Twelve-Step past.
Then
we started dealing with the fussy "do it just right" orders of the Ohmygaw That Is So Awesome Tribe. Finally the last Pussy Warmer was
topped with chocolate sprinkles, the last Hot Sweet Blonde was whipped, and the
Yakky Dumb Chicks went outside to find a table by the railing where they could
scream about how crazy they all were. Wiping down, picking up, and loading the
dishwasher wasn't really enough work for three people, but it was Gayle's
chance to find out where everything went.
I
asked her, "Do you feel like you'll be okay at the counter on your own?.
I'll be here if you really need help, but I'll be pretty busy waiting on the
Risk Club."
"What's
the Risk Club?"
"Breit
and some of his buds get together on Wednesday nights to play Risk ‑‑ that
conquer the world game you play on a big mis‑drawn map of the Earth?"
"Yeah,
my husband and his friends used to play that sometimes."
"Well,
these guys are all real good, and they play by Vietnam Rules." With those
rules added, the strongest player on the board has to finish each turn in a
pointless waste of armies trying to conquer a randomly-chosen far away
territory.
Gayle
obviously knew, because she asked, "So they play till dawn?"
"Naw,
they're all ace players. They play till the first one is eliminated. Then everybody who wasn't eliminated
gets one point, and the guy who eliminated the loser gets two. They've kept a running total of their
points for at least ten years. I
have to stay till they're done, somewhere between midnight and three, but you only have to stay till regular
closing at one thirty. I'll walk
you to your car when you leave – I always did that for Sarah."
She
nodded. "And Breit pays a dollar an hour extra after dark."
"That's
Breit. Jerky but sort of fair."
Gayle
nodded. "Cool. Okay, I'll take off and be back at seven when my real shift
starts. Thanks for breaking me in." She hung up her apron, carefully
punched the clock, and waved on her way out.
"She's
gonna be fine," I said.
"Yeah,"
Megan agreed. "I've got the counter, and I'm all caught up. It's your golden chance to go hit on
Stacy."
I
guess I'm just transparent, or something.
Stacy
and Dr. Lang were bent over a big pile of papers and notes. "Hey," I
said. "I didn't know you were working together on anything."
Dr.
Lang shrugged, which looked like two curtain rods trying to escape through his
sleeves. "Merely the most brilliant senior thesis I've ever seen. And I
wouldn't say we're working together.
Stacy is doing the work, and I'm validating it by hanging around and writing
occasional notes about how brilliant she is."
Stacy
made a harsh little "uff" sound. "If this is all so brilliant
why does it look so inadequate to me?"
"Because
it takes a brain as good as yours, or as well‑trained as mine, to see the
holes."
"Whatever."
But I could tell that made her happy. She turned the gray blue eyes on me.
"So, Hal, are you working late tonight?"
"Nine‑thirty
till closing or after," I said. "Private party might run late. But
before that I have Formal and Informal Logic, and then judo practice, so when I
get off here at four, I'm going to run over to the Tree Trunk and grab a
burger."
"Well,
I ought to study late,"
she said. "I'll hang out here till you're off shift, then let's go for a
burger together, and then I've got politics with Dr. Lang while you're in
logic, and then I'll come back here and study during your late shift. If that
would be okay. There's some stuff I'd like to talk over with you."
"If
you don't say yes, Hal, you're not nearly the bright fellow I take you
for," Dr. Lang put in helpfully. He was already pretty whiff with vodka,
which seemed extra‑nasty to me to dose your coffee with, but I guess it was his
taste buds and liver.
As
I punched the clock at four, Megan socked me on the shoulder. "First date,
stud, remember to keep your hind legs off the table."
"First
date?" I said. "We're just going for a burger."
"Guys
are impossible. Get moving, buster, I've got it covered here."
I
clocked out. Stacy and I woke up Dr. Lang, put another strong coffee into him,
and got him pointed in the right direction. After we said bye to him and he
crossed the street, Stacy walked so slow, looking down at the ground, that he
actually started to get a little ahead of us. I couldn't think of anything to
say, or maybe I was afraid that if I spoke it would break the spell and she
would vanish. It was still gorgeous, warm with a clear blue sky, like winter
would never come.
Dr.
Lang, up ahead of us, wasn't exactly staggering but one leg was dragging a
little and he kept correcting his direction a little harder than a sober man
would.
"I
wonder how that's going to end," Stacy said.
I
shrugged. "It's not a mystery. He'll keep drinking and die, or he'll stop drinking
and die of something else later."
"That's
kind of cold. He's done a lot for you."
"Yeah,"
I admitted. "You're right. Righter than you
know." Then before I really
thought about whether I wanted to say it, I said, "Coming back to college
was harder than going into prison. As soon as the guards saw that I was going
to do my time straight and careful, they were on my side. The only prof so far
that's on my side is Lang."
"Isn't
that weird? When Chelsea was alive
the profs pretty much fucking hated
Chelsea," Stacy said.
"Chelsea
always said that."
"She
was right. I got some of the same
shit. You walk in here nice
looking, with this year's clothes, and good at your classes, and some of them
hate you for that, you've already got what they busted their asses for for
twenty years and probably still won't ever have. They got over it with me cause
I sucked up pretty hard, but Chelse, no way. Not after she had that bad-girl spoiled-brat snotty thing
going on."
I
thought about that for a moment; if anyone besides Chelsea was responsible for
the way she'd been, those last few months of her life, that would be me. I
wondered if that was what Stacy meant. I decided to be a chickenshit and not
ask. "When I came back from
Cañon," I said, "Lang was the only guy that was decent to me. I wish
he didn't have that problem. I don't know why I talked so harsh about it."
Most
profs hate jocks for a lot of reasons. We get all the money, attention, and
pussy at a college. Our coaches get paid like ten times what they do. We remind
them of all the bullies from middle school. Most of all, profs hate that we're
what college is fucking about –
without sports, face it, college is just extra‑hard high school.
So
when the athletic department and the administration wanted to let me back in,
and there'd been this big ass uproar about it with a lot of profs saying that
none of them would be my advisor, Lang had volunteered.
Now
I watched Dr. Lang slouch along on the sidewalk across the street; he hunched
forward like there was a high wind blowing, or like he thought there might be
an open manhole in front of him, arms wrapped around himself to the elbows.
Then a girl in a white sweater, low‑rise jeans, and thick clunky heels ran up
to him, frantic with some question, and it was like he took a dignity pill that
second. He stood straight and listened carefully and whatever the matter was,
you could see her relax as she talked to him. "He is a good guy," I said, "and I am too harsh. I guess I'm kind of suspicious and
cynical."
"Good,"
Stacy said.
"Good?"
"Suspicious
and cynical is what I really need in a friend right now."
"I'm
just glad to hear we're still friends."
"I
can't really afford to lose any friends, any more than you can," she said.
"I mean I have people to talk to and I can find a party but … well, things
haven't gone very well, especially after some shit that happened while you were
away. These last few months have been pretty lonely."
I
didn't ask.
After
another block, her hand slipped into the crook of my arm and it was like a
chick flick montage moment, with the leaves all red and gold on the big old
trees that arched the broad, busy street. The day was so beautiful that the
college buildings on the far side really looked like they were all full of
knowledge and tradition and shit, and the old‑style storefronts on our side
looked welcoming like a small town in some movie. (Just before the thing
from the lake starts eating virgins, or the escaped convict breaks into the
pretty girl's house, I added
mentally, keeping that suspicious cynical thing going.)
"Do
you remember how much time we spent hanging out?" she said, her fingers
just pressing the inside of my elbow. "You know, freshman year."
"Yeah."
No, I haven't forgotten, I thought about hanging out with you, and our silly
jokes, and having you for a friend, every single day while I was in Cañon. Most days there, I thought about every nice thing
that had ever happened to me, and then ran through the whole list again, over
and over. I was usually in re‑runs by ten a.m.
One
thing about Stacy, when she looks serious, she stops being all cute and starts
looking like one of those old Greek statues that don't smile or frown or have
any facial expression at all, and then all of a sudden you see she's not cute,
she's beautiful, I mean not Playboy‑beautiful
the way some girls look in bars, when they look like angels are constantly
invisibly airbrushing them, but beautiful like – well, beautiful.
"Well,
shit, I missed you." She
rubbed my arm and walked a little closer. "I liked that you cried at About
a Boy when I talked you into going
with me."
"I
did not."
"You
did too go to About a Boy with
me."
"No,
I mean I didn't cry – "
"Oh,
right, I forgot, I really liked
the way you tried to tell me that your eyes got all moist because your allergies
were acting up. And I liked the geek‑boy that could name all the different Star
Trek crews, and listened to me classify all my high school boyfriends till
three‑thirty in the morning and then didn't try to trade that up for sex at the
door. I missed the shit out of
you, Hal. Truth, I knew you were working at Nasty John's, and when I asked Dr.
Lang how you were doing, he pretty much hassled me into coming over and seeing
you myself."
Sweet
Jesus fuck. How many more favors could one old guy do me? "Okay," I said. "The next time I
talk cold about the man, I want you to hit me on the head with something big
and hard, 'kay?"
"Deal."
I
suddenly couldn't think of anything stupid to say to ruin the moment, so I had
to walk with her on that nice Indian‑summer afternoon with that movie‑set
college campus, all red and gold, sharp like it was cut into the air with a
knife. Fucking awesome or what?
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Father Lucifer: Middle Part of Chapter Two
<<<<<Beginning of the book
<<<<<<<<<<Previous
§
I knew Breit hated to be awakened before nine, so I
phoned him at 8:30 from the lobby of the City‑County Building. The hawwnkks and brakkk‑k‑k‑s from his end could have been a walrus receiving
the Heimlich maneuver.
"Detectives in Denver are unlicensed," I
said. "Anyone can be one. Even an ex‑felon illiterate oaf like me. They
were going to start licensing them a couple years ago but the state board that
controls licensing said detectives were not important enough, at least not as
important as beauticians, so they didn't." It had taken me about fifteen
minutes to learn this as I wandered from office to office. "But if you're
going to take clients and accept checks, you have to register a trade name, and
now that I've been around here asking, the tax guys know you're out there. I
thought Nasty John's Detective Agency didn't have a real good salesy ring to
it, know what I'm saying?"
"Yeah." Hrawk‑bbb‑hrawk‑k‑k. "Yeah. All right, well, give us a name, list
yourself as fifty percent owner. Some name someone your age would like."
"Beer and Chicks Detective Agency."
"You know what I mean."
I did, so I called Leigh, since she's my consultant
on what's cool. It was also my chance to make sure she was on her way to
school, which she was.
"Something that comes off 'private eye',"
she said. "With like a real good positive word. Mad Sick Eye."
"Sounds like an ophthalmologist."
"Then you think of something, and I'll tell you why it's lame."
"Maybe Chillin' Eyes?" I ventured.
"Cause all God's chilluns gots eyes?"
I laughed. "Educate me."
"Chill is over. Chillin' is so over the preps and the Jesusoids use it. Chill
Eyes would be okay on your tax documents, as long as you don't say it out in
public."
"Deal," I said. "Thanks. Consider
yourself patted on the head and told to stay in school because you're a good
kid."
"Momster already did that this morning. Now I
got to get back with my girls."
A voice in the background shrieked, "Tell him
he's cute," just before Leigh added, "So fuck off," and hung up.
I love my little sister.
Tax registration for Chill Eyes was a state thing
so I had to go a few blocks east to the office buildings by the Capitol to do
that, but it was really pretty simple. Just as I finished the phone rang, and
it was Breit. "Hey," he said, "I made some phone calls. You're
right, there's no detective licensing in Colorado."
"Wow, I sure lucked out making that one up, hunh?"
Hrawk‑ftooth. "The last time I talked to a detective I know here in Denver—he
has a big agency and a lot of good ex‑cop connections, and he and I go way
back—" There was about two minutes of Breit jabbering about the guy's
cousins and connections and friends before he said, "So I thought he'd
gotten licensing through but it turned out he didn't."
At thirty‑five an hour, he could read me the phone
book and I'd agree with him. When I was sure he was done, I told him we were
now Chill Eyes.
"Good. Now about the gun permit, I thought
since I screwed things up so badly with sending you after the detective permit
that doesn't exist, I'd straighten things out on the gun thing by making some
calls." A short burst of snotty noise segued into a gasp followed by Fuck! He'd awakened enough to blow his nose.
While he was talking and I was all unh‑hunh I'm
listening, I'd gotten into my old
p.o.s Cutlass, backed it out, and steered back into the Golden Triangle, that
impossible tangle of streets just across Colfax from the south end of downtown,
where the streets are all fucked up into short blocks among busy streets
meeting at weird angles.
As I drove around looking for an open meter, Breit
told me the names of like six people I should talk to, and everything he knew
about their cousins, and several important legal principles, and a couple
stories about the detective business, and for all I know, since I paid no
attention, probably his mommy's recipe for lemon meringue pie. I thanked him
and told him I'd sure try that, just about the time I finally parked way the
fuck down on Eleventh Avenue, near Speer.
It was five blocks back but not a bad walk today;
that warm-November weather was still hanging on, the bright sun gleaming on all
those government buildings and business towers. Lots of snow on the mountains
in the distance, but here among the red and gold trees, nobody was wearing a
coat, and even the middle‑aged office ladies were bravely making do with just
sweaters.
After I cleared the metal detector at the Sheriff's
office, I took a number, snagged a brochure from the rack, sat in a corner
close to the counter, read the brochure with a tenth of my brain and listened
hard with the rest. Very politely, the brochure said that "You have to
have all this crap in order and then we can just say no anyway just because we
feel like acting retarded."
I heard one Denver deputy turned down a vet just
back from someplace in the Middle East, on grounds that he'd only used a gun in
the army and hadn't ever had an NRA course.
Then a woman deputy told this tiny little woman,
whose husband had beat her with a bat, that it was "not in the public
interest" for her to get a permit, and kept trying to give her the number
for a shelter, and wouldn't listen at all when the woman tried to say, But
it's my house. I paid for it. He moved into it and now he's
hitting me, stealing from me, I'm afraid he's going to hurt my kids. It's my house, and when I tell him to leave, I want
to have a gun handy.
Little Miss Deputyette Fucktard just kept talking
about how the people at the shelter were wonderful and telling the tiny little
lady how much she cared, and trying to hug her and be all supportive. It was
like something my mother would do—useless, but she wanted credit for it.
Obviously Denver didn't want to give out any
permits.
If I gave a shit, I'd have to agree with Breit
about guns, and I'm careful never to agree with Breit, so I don't give a shit.
I just told the guard I needed to go home for more paperwork, handed him my
little number back, and got my quiet polite ass out of there.
I'd found a great big loophole in that brochure.
Momster owned a little piece of worthless property up in Larimer County, in a
bend of the Big Thomson River. She'd been in on a plan with five friends to
start a commune back around the time I was born, and originally they'd bought
it together.
About half the property was pretty much vertical,
cliffs and bluff faces and breaking‑away redrock, and the rest divided between
bare redrock and sandy bottomland that flooded in every rainstorm. That had
been why it was so cheap for Momster and her friends to buy it back then, and
it was also why, over the years since, it had been cheap for her to buy out her
friends' shares, sometimes for cash, sometimes for a dollar over the table and
a pile of weed under. Now she was sole owner of some rocks and sand and a few
pathetic aspens and cottonwoods, a patch of dirt that nobody could build on
ever.
But that land was there, in Larimer County, right
up near the Wyoming state line, at the corner of Way Out and Too Far you might
say, and she'd kept the taxes up, and the Colorado rules said I could get a
permit in any county where my immediate family owned property. I had a feeling
the sheriff'd be a little friendlier up there, even though Fort Collins, the
county seat, was a fairly liberal college town.
I also needed proof that I'd completed a firearms
course, so when I swung by the house for the tax record on Momster's Folly, I
picked up my certificates and merit badge sash from the Boy Scouts; I'd had the
merit badges for Rifle Shooting and Shotgun Shooting.
Then I caught Santa Fe north to 25, and 25 right up
to Fort Collins, maybe fifty miles in about forty minutes, a gorgeous drive on
a nice fall day, with the harvest all in, the mountains shining in the west,
and not a statey in sight.
At Larimer County Sheriff's Office, the property
tax receipt and my merit badge sheets were all it took to get a concealed carry
permit, at least when the clerk on duty was this thirty‑something bleached
blonde in a stretchy pink top who also told me where her six favorite bars were
in Fort Collins, and that Fort Collins might look kind of small‑town but it
partied real crazy, and about how she was just too alive to go out for coffee
and dinner with old men because she liked to dance and have a good time. I
smiled a lot, and it was a slow Wednesday, and my permit went right through. I
managed not to think thank god it's easy go get a gun up here, they've got a
serious cougar problem until I was
actually back in my Olds p.o.s.
I checked the clock; 11:42 a.m. Breit had said he
wanted a progress report by one. I called him and told him what I'd done. He
laughed, and though he didn't say "thanks" or "good job,"
which might have made his dick fall off, he did tell me to fill up my tank on
the 1919 account debit card.
I walked into Nasty John's half an hour early for
my shift. Breit and Megan were at the counter, talking to what seemed to be a
pretty girl, till she turned around and I saw it was my sister.
I'd come bounding through the door in a real good
mood, but when I saw that it was Leigh I slowed way down. Serious trouble at
home?
But then Megan hit the big piece of paper between
them with the APPROVED stamp, and I saw it was a poster for Fall Dance Concert, Englewood High School.
"Impressive poster," I said.
"Definitely," Leigh said.
"Understandable by a primitive man such as yourself, and brilliantly
designed."
"Meaning you designed it?"
"I had to. Who else was going to do any kind
of job? I mean, it's fucking high school, the teacher wanted a picture of
dancing pirates, to show our old Pirate spirit, you know? So in a school full
of fucktards, who else was going to do it?"
"It's very cool and elegant and looks
professional as all shit," Megan said, "and don't let your brother
spoil that for you."
"Hey, I think it looks good too—"
"Not even when he says that."
"Really?" Leigh asked, ignoring me.
"You think it looks good?"
Megan nodded emphatically. "Really. Better
than half the things in my advertising class. Not to mention so well done even
Hal can see that it's well done."
"Hey," I said, feebly. They ignored that
too.
Leigh was obviously excited that Megan had said she
liked it. "I scared them all, told them I was going to headline it NUBILE JAILBAIT IN LEOTARDS, DIRTY OLD MEN
WELCOME, so they were so relieved to see what I actually did do, they didn't fuck around with it
afterward."
Breit laughed. "Hal, we need a full‑time evil
person on the staff, so let me know when Leigh's old enough to work full time.
Meanwhile I need you for about five minutes in the back room."
His back, visible around and through his hot pink
wifebeater (2XL, according to the tag that stuck out), looked like shag carpet
over lumpy linoleum, and his ass looked like two pigs fighting in a sack. He
closed the door and said, "What you did to get your carry permit was what
I mean about intelligently not following orders. You have $175 coming for the
morning's work, and I'll have more instructions for you soon. Something more
interesting I hope." He stuck out his hand, and, what the fuck, I shook
it. Didn't even wipe my own hand on my pants till he'd left the room.
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