Read Online Salvage by Stephen Maher - Free Book Online

If they knew I was fucking you, they might just lock me up. So you got to stay away from me until I figure this shit out. Find someone else to fuck if you have to.”
    She cried again and slapped him and called him a prick.
    â€œI’m sorry,” he said and hugged her again. “But that’s the situation we’re in. If you really need to see me, call Charlie and leave a message.”
    He made her get dressed then and leave, so nobody would see her car parked next to his boat in the morning.
    He kissed her and hugged her and told her that he loved her, and told her everything was going to be OK.
    As she walked to the car, he called to her from the deck of his boat. “Angela,” he said.
    She stopped to look at him. Her beautiful face was in the darkness, but the light from a street lamp shone through her dark curls.
    â€œDo you think the baby’s Jimmy’s?”
    She laughed at him. “Phillip, I don’t have a fucking clue.”
    And she got in her car and drove away, tires spinning gravel.

Sunday, April 25
    DOUG AMOS’S TRAILER WAS the nicest one on the dirt road that ran from Gold River into the pine and hardwoods inland.
    It had a built-on porch covered with vinyl siding, a big painted deck with the footings hidden behind a trellis. There was a big new Ford truck and a rusted Hyundai sedan in the driveway. A little pink bicycle lay on its side next to the driveway. Between the trailer and the woods behind, there was a vegetable garden.
    A clothesline ran from the trailer to a post near the garden. A chain was attached to the clothesline, and a big German shepherd was attached to the chain. It barked at Scarnum’s truck and lunged, yanking the clothesline so it rattled.
    Scarnum sat in the truck and waited. He saw a curtain move and a woman’s face peek out. Then a man’s face came to the window.
    Doug Amos didn’t look too friendly when he eventually came out. He had a black moustache and was wearing a red and black lumberjack coat, track pants, rubber boots, a plastic ball cap, and a scowl.
    Scarnum rolled down his window. The dog kept barking and lunging.
    â€œWhat can I do for you?” the man called from the deck.
    Scarnum got out of the truck. “I come to talk to you about Jimmy,” he said. “Angela sent me.”
    Amos just stared at him for a minute, then turned to the dog and yelled, “King! Shut the fuck up.”
    He lifted a broken hockey stick from the porch and walked toward the dog, raising it in the air over his head. “King! Shut the fuck up!”
    Seeing the stick, the dog whimpered and its tail went down. It slunk away toward the garden, looking back over its shoulder.
    Amos walked down off the porch, still holding the hockey stick. Scarnum didn’t reach out to shake his hand.
    â€œMy name’s Phillip Scarnum,” he said. “I’m a friend of Angela’s. She’s awful upset about Jimmy.”
    He stopped there, and the two men stood silently in the driveway, each looking in different directions.
    â€œTerrible thing,” said Amos.
    â€œYuh,” said Scarnum, and he waited a minute. “She’s carrying his baby,” he said and he looked at Amos full-on. “Kid’s going to grow up without a daddy.”
    Amos kept looking away, off down the dirt road, as if he was expecting someone. “Yuh,” he said. “Terrible thing.”
    â€œWhat Angela wants to know,” said Scarnum. “Is why Jimmy was out on that goddamned boat by himself. She wants to know why you weren’t with him. You two usually fished together.”
    Amos turned to him and Scarnum could see he was very angry.
    â€œWell,” he said. “You can tell her he was alone because that’s the way he goddamn well wanted it. Tell her he asked me to call in sick so’s he could go out alone.”
    The dog sat up and started barking again, tentatively this time. Amos turned and