Read Online Rumors from the Lost World by Alan Davis - Free Book Online Page A

is she, this woman of yours?”
    â€œLater.” As he turned to pick his way through a cluster of people, an ill-tempered growl was his only warning. The head-butter smashed into his lower spine, nearly flipped him backwards. His whiskey slopped into his face, the orange juice with its dose of vodka drenched the white carpet. He picked himself up, red-faced, and to the sound of scattered handclaps and hoots took a step towards his attacker, who was tramping back to the bar.
    Trudy swatted him on the rump. “Losing your balance?” she said. “Don’t bother with Vinny. He ain’t worth it. He’s supposed to fix drinks, but he’s loaded. Come on, honey, I’ll fix you up.” In a halfbath under a stairwell near the front entrance she tended to his wounded pride by sponging his face neat of whiskey. She wore the same silk dress that hugged her figure with such abandon at the Stardust. “Don’t worry. You’re going to have a great time.” She rested a hand on his back. “Come on upstairs, we’ll get a fresh shirt.”
    T. J. Raines stood in the large open-beamed room. “You two looking for something?” He fingered his gold chain. “Or what, my man?”
    â€œT. J., be nice,” Trudy said.
    Raines belched, turned away from Trudy, and squinted into the fireplace. “Sit down,” he said to Levoski. “I’m surprised you had the guts to show up.”
    Levoski sat on an ottoman. “More fun that bowling,” he said, ill at ease on the round cushion.
    â€œBowling? Like you mean bowling?” Raines leaned forward and launched an imaginary bowling ball into the fireplace. “A ball with big holes in it. Beer. Greasy burgers. Leagues. Unions, right?”
    â€œT. J., be nice,” Trudy repeated.
    â€œYou’re still here, sweetheart? Scram.”
    Raines sat in the plush easy chair that belonged with the ottoman. “I thought we had an understanding.” He fondled a leather pouch of pipe tobacco. “You told me you’d consider a little deal. You told me you owned the company.”
    â€œI didn’t say that,” Levoski mumbled, too sober to find his voice. “You assumed it.” He ran his fingers over the ottoman’s furred upholstery.
    â€œAssume? You break that down, little man, and you know what it does? It makes an ass of you and an ass of me.” T. J. Raines allowed himself a brief smile, then turned and spat into the fireplace. “What you think? I couldn’t check you out? You think money grows on trees? You take me for some kind of chump?”
    â€œI just wanted a break.” At home in the Bush, he would sink into the old sofa and finger its vinyl iron-on patches, speechless, found out in some petty lie. His father lectured him, accompanying each point with the tap of a finger on an open palm, as though spanking a tiny boy. “You skipped practice, you left that comet lying in an empty room. You know how that makes me feel?”
    â€œA break?” Raines said. “You set me up, I’ll break both your goddamn arms, I’ll break your goddamn neck. You force my hand, big guy, and I can be a real swinging dick.”
    He laid down his pouch of tobacco and opened both hands, as though bestowing a blessing. “Look, boy, I just want you to know I checked you out. I don’t give nobody the business without good reason, and I mean that any way you can take it.” He stood up and grinned, his face melting almost miraculously from something Corleone might fear to an aw-shucks deference. “You’re my kind of schmuck, Leo. Now that you know what kind of meat I’m made out of, we might be able to work together anyhows.” He turned his back on the roofer and shot his cuffs towards the fireplace. “Look, I thought you were hitting on me, taking me for a Rufus. Now I see I was wrong. You’re a good man, aren’t you, Leonie? Working