Read Online A Fierce and Subtle Poison by Samantha Mabry - Free Book Online

“What did you just say?”
    “Luke!” His words were garbled, probably because I was crushing his windpipe. “What the hell is wrong with you? Shit! Rico, man, help me out!”
    Rico gave Ruben and me an apathetic once-over. His eyes then went back to the television and the mean-looking Apache with the gun.
    “You’re on your own, Ruben,” he said. “You know better than to talk about a man’s mother.”
    “I’m sorry, okay?” Ruben’s words continued to struggle to find their way out. “Now get off me!”
    The instant I backed away, Ruben sprang up and threw me against the door. I caught myself with one of my hands, launched off the door, and shoved him back, causing him to fall, trip over his feet, and crash into the side of his bed. As he stood up and straightened his shirt, he stared me down, mumbling curses under his breath.
    My next words were directed to Rico. “Where are the girls? Are they coming over or what?”
    Rico dropped his medallion and looked over his shoulder at me. “I don’t know where they are, okay? Ruth called earlier and said that she was waiting for Marisol to get to her place. That was around seven, maybe.”
    I glanced at the clock on Ruben’s nightstand. It was eight forty-eight.
    The last thing I wanted to do was hang around with two guys who were drunk and stoned while I was neither.
    “I’m leaving. You two have fun.” I turned to go but stopped, scraping my fingernails through my hair. “Hey,” I said. “Do you two remember any stories about the house on the end of Calle Sol?”
    Ruben continued with his indignant scowling while Rico stared at me blank-faced.
    “We would make up stories about it being cursed,” I urged.
    Rico looked down and shrugged. His fingers flew back to his medallion.
    “I don’t remember any stories like
that
,” Ruben said, wiping foam off his chin with his shirtsleeve. “I do remember a story about a nun who hung herself in your hotel back when it was a convent. You seeing ghosts, Lucas?” Ruben continued to shout after me as I turned and started down the hall. “Is that why you look so bad? Serves you right! You are such an asshole. You know that, don’t you?”
    I knew that, yeah.
    I reached the bottom of the stairs and passed through the kitchen where Celia was sitting by herself at the table playing with an assembly of plastic, pink-skinned dolls. She was stroking their hair while speaking to them in a language only they could understand, all babbles and shushes, like water in a cold stream.
    Once outside, I hailed a cab and told the driver to take me to Condado Beach.
    Other than the stray strips of police tape flapping in the wind and a small cluster of pillar candles—the kind with the pictures of the saints on them—the beach was empty. There were no cops, no curious onlookers, certainly no tourists. When families plan their trips to paradise, they don’t exactly expect a dead girl to wash up right in front of their hotel. My dad didn’t own any of the high-rises in this part of San Juan, but if he had, he’d be in full-on damage control mode right now, easing anxieties with smooth talk, complimentary trips to the spa, and meal vouchers.
    Unlike the señoras with their elephant memories, however, the tourists from the mainland never let something as unpleasant as a dead girl dim their days for very long. Most likely by tomorrow morning the beach would be packed again, and everyone would be back to fun in the sun.
    For now, it was good to be alone. I took off my shoes and made my way down the wet sand toward La Andalusia. Its name, spelled out in huge, curving red letters that hadn’t been lit up for decades, faced the water and reminded me of a lighthouse with a negligent keeper. I snaked around the side of the hotel to where one of several first-story windows was boarded over with a thin square of plywood. This had always been my way in. The nails holding the square in place had rusted to the point of being useless, and