Read Online All for One by Ryne Douglas Pearson - Free Book Online Page B

away from her assailant.
    “She’s dead!” Chuck repeated.
    “Sooner or later we all are, Chuckie,” Dooley said, then asked a man in work blues running up fast, “Did someone call the cops?”
    Mr. Carter eyed the man with the gun curiously. “What are you?”
    “Did someone call a cop with a COP CAR ? With lights and sirens and a cage for this.” Chuck stirred and Dooley mashed his cheek hard against the dented hood. “Stay the fuck down!”
    *  *  *
    Jeff and Joey both turned toward the police cars racing past them down Maple, strobes spinning blue and red, sirens howling. The trio of muddy-sided cruisers turned on Peyton Way and disappeared.
    “I wonder what happened,” Joey said.
    “An accident, I’ll bet,” Jeff guessed.
    “You’re probably right,” Joey agreed halfheartedly. One week ago he probably would have chased after the wailing procession, at least to where they’d turned on Peyton to see where they might be headed, just like any eleven year old boy would. Well, any eleven year old boy with a natural curiosity to those things morbid and, possibly, bloody. A wreck could easily end up a red mess, as Joey remembered his dad describing one bad head-on he’d seen right in front of the Quik Stop market a few years back. Sure, one week ago the thought of seeing something like that would have pulled him along after the cruisers as if hooked to them with a stout tow cable. But one week ago was one week ago. He’d now seen a red mess, finally, and had had his fill. His fill for a lifetime.
    “Probably up on Roman Boulevard,” Jeff theorized. “Cops will go code three if someone’s trapped or hurt bad. Code three means—”
    “I watch Cops . I know what code three is.”
    They walked quietly up Maple as the sirens faded, passing clean and quiet houses, some with white picket fences and smoke rising from the chimneys. The kind of houses that grew like weeds on this side of town. The other side just had weeds.
    When they came to the intersection with Wasatch Avenue, the point at which Jeff had expected the ‘See ya tomorrow’ split to occur, Joey kept on walking, eyes narrow and forward as if considering something of great importance in the distance, feet moving him like some slow speed guided missileboy.
    “Hey. Uh, Joey. You live, uh, that way .”
    “How far up is Elena’s street?” Joey asked.
    “A couple blocks,” Jeff answered. He looked up that way, just like Joey was, and he understood.
    *  *  *
    The garage area at Jet Motors sat back from Roman Boulevard, a half acre of eighties vintage pickups and sedans between it and the busiest four lanes in Bartlett. Michael Prentiss jogged between the cars like a football player running drills and headed toward the sound of air wrenches whirring.
    “Hi, pop.”
    Jack Prentiss stood beneath a ‘72 Volvo, his hands reaching up into its guts. “Hey, Mikey.”
    Michael dropped his bag just inside the three bay garage and joined his father under the car. He stared up past the hanging shop light into the greasy darkness. “Mrs. Beeman’s?”
    “Yeah,” Mr. Prentiss sighed. “The old woman hears noises when it’s sitting in her garage.”
    “What is it this time?”
    Jack Prentiss tapped the oil pan with a wrench. “It’s this.” And the drive shaft. “Or this.” And the muffler. “Or this.”
    “She’s old,” Michael said in Mrs. Beeman’s defense. She still gave out the best stuff on Halloween. And she paid pretty good to have her yard raked, or her gutters cleaned, or any other little thing that caught her eye and ‘needed attention.’ That’s how she’d say it, too, whenever she called his mom or dad and put in a request for Michael’s help. ‘The leaves in my driveway need attention’, or ‘The paint on my garage door is peeling and needs attention.’ And it was never that much work. A half hour, tops.
    Besides, it wasn’t the work she was paying for. Michael had figured that out the first time she talked his