Read Online Gin Palace 01 - The Poisoned Rose by Daniel Judson - Free Book Online
Authors: Daniel Judson
Ads: Link
must keep you on your toes.”
“She’s a handful. She’s her father’s daughter, whether she likes it or not. She saw her mother get murdered. She was left for dead, hid for three days before someone found her. She didn’t speak for almost a year after that. Trauma.” He smiled and shrugged. “Now of course she does nothing but talk. She’s not afraid of speaking her mind. She’s like her mother that way.”
“You two must be close.”
He nodded. “We take care of the ones we love, right?”
I had nothing to say to that, so I glanced toward my front windows again. Sunrise was definitely underway somewhere not far beyond the rain clouds.
Augie and I drank and talked till daylight was finally everywhere and the birds were singing and the rain had stopped falling through the trees. Together we listened to the church bell a half mile down North Main Street strike seven times. The bottle of Beam was empty and the twittering of the birds was like so much madness outside my windows.
I heard Augie saying, “We’ve got to find that cop killer before he has a chance to find us … Yeah, we stepped into it good, didn’t we … I’ll probably come back for you later on tonight … Thanks for not leaving me there …”
The next thing I knew I was alone in my living room and staring up at my ceiling from the dust-covered wood floor. I don’t know how I got there. But there was a steady ringing in my ears, and whenever I closed my eyes I saw a floating egg, blue-rimmed with an orange center. I felt as if I was being pulled along on the surface of a foaming river.
***
When I awoke it was light out and I was hungry. I looked at the bottle on my coffee table and saw that it was empty. I felt hollow and weak.
I had dreamed most of the night of the many ways of escape—the back roads out of town, and the secondary roads that bypassed the main highways and led off the island. I dreamed of the train tracks running from Montauk to Queens, mile after mile of metal rails and hard wood ties. I saw myself walking that straight line right out of here, away from everything I’ve ever known, counting each tie with the morning sun at my back.
I was awake now and still couldn’t shake that idea from my mind. Escape. The word echoed in my thoughts. But thinking and doing were two very different things. When I finally got myself up off the floor, I saw that it was three in the afternoon. I wandered into my kitchen but couldn’t find anything to eat, so I put on hot water for tea and stood at my window and looked at the train station.
The shutoff notice from the electric company was hanging on the refrigerator behind me. I didn’t have to see it to know that it was there. It reminded me of the money on my coffee table, the cash Frank Gannon had given Augie to give me.
I went to it, opened the envelope, and counted through the bills. It was more money than I had seen in a long time. It was almost as much as I had made in my best month last summer, when Jamie Ray and I had managed to do three painting jobs in one six-day week of working seven in the morning to eight at night.
I closed the envelope and dropped it onto the coffee table. The teakettle whistled back in the kitchen and I went to it and took it off the stove and dropped my last bag of ginger tea into a mug and poured the water over it. Then I pulled the chair Augie had sat in most of the night back to its position in front of my living room windows and sat on it backwards and looked down on Elm Street.
I thought about the chances that I could start a new life here and even made of list of errands to run, followed by a promise to myself to actually get out and run them. But before I could get too far with that I started to think of Vogler bleeding to death on that rainy street. From there it was a short trip to thinking about almost being killed out on Noyac Road. And it wasn’t long after that that I remembered the scratches on my face. I touched them with my
“She’s a handful. She’s her father’s daughter, whether she likes it or not. She saw her mother get murdered. She was left for dead, hid for three days before someone found her. She didn’t speak for almost a year after that. Trauma.” He smiled and shrugged. “Now of course she does nothing but talk. She’s not afraid of speaking her mind. She’s like her mother that way.”
“You two must be close.”
He nodded. “We take care of the ones we love, right?”
I had nothing to say to that, so I glanced toward my front windows again. Sunrise was definitely underway somewhere not far beyond the rain clouds.
Augie and I drank and talked till daylight was finally everywhere and the birds were singing and the rain had stopped falling through the trees. Together we listened to the church bell a half mile down North Main Street strike seven times. The bottle of Beam was empty and the twittering of the birds was like so much madness outside my windows.
I heard Augie saying, “We’ve got to find that cop killer before he has a chance to find us … Yeah, we stepped into it good, didn’t we … I’ll probably come back for you later on tonight … Thanks for not leaving me there …”
The next thing I knew I was alone in my living room and staring up at my ceiling from the dust-covered wood floor. I don’t know how I got there. But there was a steady ringing in my ears, and whenever I closed my eyes I saw a floating egg, blue-rimmed with an orange center. I felt as if I was being pulled along on the surface of a foaming river.
***
When I awoke it was light out and I was hungry. I looked at the bottle on my coffee table and saw that it was empty. I felt hollow and weak.
I had dreamed most of the night of the many ways of escape—the back roads out of town, and the secondary roads that bypassed the main highways and led off the island. I dreamed of the train tracks running from Montauk to Queens, mile after mile of metal rails and hard wood ties. I saw myself walking that straight line right out of here, away from everything I’ve ever known, counting each tie with the morning sun at my back.
I was awake now and still couldn’t shake that idea from my mind. Escape. The word echoed in my thoughts. But thinking and doing were two very different things. When I finally got myself up off the floor, I saw that it was three in the afternoon. I wandered into my kitchen but couldn’t find anything to eat, so I put on hot water for tea and stood at my window and looked at the train station.
The shutoff notice from the electric company was hanging on the refrigerator behind me. I didn’t have to see it to know that it was there. It reminded me of the money on my coffee table, the cash Frank Gannon had given Augie to give me.
I went to it, opened the envelope, and counted through the bills. It was more money than I had seen in a long time. It was almost as much as I had made in my best month last summer, when Jamie Ray and I had managed to do three painting jobs in one six-day week of working seven in the morning to eight at night.
I closed the envelope and dropped it onto the coffee table. The teakettle whistled back in the kitchen and I went to it and took it off the stove and dropped my last bag of ginger tea into a mug and poured the water over it. Then I pulled the chair Augie had sat in most of the night back to its position in front of my living room windows and sat on it backwards and looked down on Elm Street.
I thought about the chances that I could start a new life here and even made of list of errands to run, followed by a promise to myself to actually get out and run them. But before I could get too far with that I started to think of Vogler bleeding to death on that rainy street. From there it was a short trip to thinking about almost being killed out on Noyac Road. And it wasn’t long after that that I remembered the scratches on my face. I touched them with my
Similar Books
![Jaguars' Reward [Impulse 3] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting)](https://fs.dianahicksbooks.com/511469/thumbs/152x264/jaguars-reward-impulse-3-siren-publishing-menage-everlasting.png)
