Read Online Another Broken Wizard by Colin Dodds - Free Book Online Page A

pocked with salt. The windows in the warehouses across the street were still lit, with no other signs of life inside. In New York, those warehouses would have been made into million-dollar loft condominiums ten years ago. But in Worcester, they just hung over the street, four stories of mostly dark windows. They were reassuring and ominous all at once. I dialed Emily’s number, and beneath Vincent’s blinking neon sign, told her voicemail that I was in town, and to call me. Emily was one of the handful of people I’d kept in touch with from Worcester. I knew she was living there, finishing a PhD in history at Clark after a long time out of town.
    Back in the bar, Joe was chatting up the same woman and the band was still on its break. Joe caressed the woman’s knee with his fingers. He wasn’t exactly smooth, but methodical and practiced when approaching women. I walked over.
    “Jim, this is Monique,” Joe said, looking excited. I saw a quartet of empty shot glasses and chewed lime wedges before them.
    “I told you, it’s Moniqua,” she said. Mo-nee-kwa .
    “Nice to meet you.”
    “Oh honey, your friend is cute!” Moniqua said, her gap-toothed smile and lazy eye shining out over her cleavage.
    Moniqua was probably very attractive around the time Joe and I started high school. And though her face told a chaotic tale and the perfume was a bit much, she was complemented by tight jeans, a push-up bra, copious makeup and a general lack of single women at the bar.
    “You have a friend for him? Because I’m keeping you all to myself,” Joe said and pinched her side. She giggled and gave him a deadly serious look. “He’s a big New York executive, but he’s in town for a few weeks.”
    As I waited for the cover band to deliver me from Joe’s pick-up, Emily called.
     
     
    14.
     
     
    Out in the cold, I gave Emily my recap. It wasn’t fun. The more you tell a story, the truer it becomes.
    “Sounds like a perfect storm. You always wanted to get out of Worcester. Now you get shoved right back,” she said.
    “Apparently, all it takes is a crumbling economy, a divorce and an anomalous mass near my father’s heart. Wicked are the ways of fucking fortune. What are you doing tonight?”
    “Not much, just reading.”
    “I’m out with Joe right now. But it looks like he’s got his hooks into a lady at the bar. And some street gang is hunting him and says they plan to burn down his apartment.”
“Jesus, how long have you been back?” Emily chuckled.
“Five days.”
“That’s a lot of drama for five days.”
“Never a dull moment, I guess. Can I come by in like an hour?”
“Sure. I’ll go nuts if I have to read much more tonight. I’m at the same place.”
    In Vincent’s, the band played an Elvis Costello number while Joe and Moniqua got sloppy at the bar. She clutched at his ponytail with her veiny hands and long, orange fingernails and he kissed her with the same overkill he applied to lighting a cigarette or eating a chicken wing. I settled up the tab and tapped Joe on the shoulder.
“Hey man, I’m going to head over to Emily’s. Do you want me to drop you and Moniqua somewhere?”
“Emily? Emily Urbonas?”
“Yeah, from junior high.”
Joe leaned his mouth near Moniqua’s ear and said some words. She paused and did the same. They both came up smiling.
    “Can you drive me and Monique back to my place first? We just have to finish these drinks,” Joe said. Moniqua pursed her lips as Joe mispronounced her name one more time.
    We left Vincent’s and they climbed into the back of my rental car. I approached Joe’s apartment and drove slowly past it, looking for the exhaust of idling cars, lit dome lights or other signs of people waiting in the parked cars that lined his street. I circled the block and pulled up to his house, checking my mirrors as I put the car in park. It sobered me up.
    “We here?” Joe said, barely turning his head from Moniqua.
    Looking back, I could see her jeans were at