Read Online Everything but the Squeal by Timothy Hallinan - Free Book Online Page A

the table. “Don't be idiotic,” she said.
    “Beg pardon?” I asked.
    She flicked the bottle with a fingernail and I saw her mother snapping her nail against the edges of the Polaroids. “Aren't you listening?” she demanded. “How many times do I have to ask you? What's the matter, you got potatoes in your ears?”
    “Oh,” I said, “right. Did you have any idea Aimee was going to run away?”
    “What a stupid question. Do you think I can read minds?”
    “Did she ever say anything about it?”
    “Oh, come on. Think for a change, would you? No, she didn't.”
    “Did she have a boyfriend?”
    “That's none of your business.” She raised the bottle and drank, and I watched her delicate throat work as she swallowed. “No,” she said, wiping her lips again, “she didn't. Jesus, stupid, she's only twelve.”
    “Thirteen, I think.”
    “Christ on a crutch, what's that to me? You think I can remember a single year? Twelve, thirteen, what's the difference? I got things on my mind , you know?”
    “The deal,” I said, taking the bottle. “Remember?”
    She gave me a narrow smile. “Just getting the flow going,” she said.
    “So no boyfriends?”
    “Aimee doesn't have time for boys. She's going to be a movie star. Don't you know anything ?”
    “Were your parents brutal to her?” There was no other way to ask the question.
    “Hey,” she said, “we do the best we can. And by the way, did I tell you that I'm getting tired of the sound of your voice?”
    “Did they hit her?”
    “They didn't have to.” She made a face. “Have you got a cigarette?”
    “I don't smoke.”
    “Then what good are you?”
    “Not much.”
    “What kind of kid are you, anyway? Kids talk back.”
    “Okay,” I said lamely. “Stick it in your ear.”
    “It's no fun if you don't talk back.” She sounded plaintive.
    “It isn't much fun even if I do.”
    Aurora put a hand beneath the cushion of the couch and pulled out a slightly crushed pack of Marlboro Lights. “I guess it isn't,” she said. Her shoulders sagged. “So why do they do it?”
    “They don't know what else to do. They feel like kids themselves and they feel like they've got to hide it. Maybe they're afraid their kids will get frightened if Mommy and Daddy don't act like they know everything. It's probably easier for the fathers. At least their voices change. Mothers have it rougher. They always sound squeaky.”
    “Says you,” Aurora said, lighting her cigarette. “My mother could handle my father, his father, and all his brothers without losing her place in the Ladies' Home Journal .” She blew a cloud of smoke at me. “So, game over. What do you want to know?”
    “What did Aimee run away from?”
    “Well,” she said, puffing away. “Kansas City, for one thing.”
    “Not enough,” I said. “You said they never beat her.”
    “They don't have to beat us,” she said. “They can love us to death.” The right side of her mouth, the upwardly tilted, kissable side, turned up even farther. Her brown skin gleamed.
    “That's not really fair,” I said. “It's a cheap shot.”
    “Okay,” she said. “Just for argument, let's say you're all right. I'll tell you an Aimee story. Just one out of hundreds.”
    “Shoot,” I said, putting the bottle out of reach.
    “She was eight, right? I mean, we're talking about a time of life when anything can kill you. Bad breath, ugly shoes. Buttercups are tough guys compared to an eight-year-old girl.” She looked for the bottle, and I gave up and handed it to her.
    “It was Halloween,” she said. “Aimee wanted to be a princess. Well, I mean, who doesn't? She'd been asking for weeks for a princess costume to wear to this big party, this absolutely gigantic eight-year-olds' party, and the guy she had a crush on had even asked her to go with him. No prince was ever better-looking to Cinderella than this little eight-year-old creep—Jesus, his name was Arthur—was to Aimee. And Arthur , the wonderful