Read Online San Francisco Noir by Peter Maravelis - Free Book Online Page A

here in total blackout boonie land with my best friend. Oh yeahhhhh.”
    Alhambra came up the hallway carrying a small lantern. She said, “Phone lines are down.”
    Gina leaped up, flailing the blanket in the air like a huge bat. “We’ll get the boogie man! You and me, Alhambra! We’ll scare im right back into the hellhole he keep comin up out of! Every smartass self-righteous bastard that ever EVER tried to make us small. Every shitmouth rich bitch who plays the I’m-entitled card—we will smassssh her. We’ll tear the prison walls DOWN, muthafucka, DOWN!”
    Alhambra put the lantern on the floor, grabbing a corner of the blanket. She raced Gina out into the night, howling, “Down, muthafuckas! Get baaaaack! Mothafuckas!”
    It wasn’t until they got right to the edge of the swollen river that Gina noticed she had no clothes on. “Oh my god.” She curled forward. “Karen! You let me go outside stark-ers.”
    Alhambra leaned against the huge belly of a redwood, laughter making it impossible for her to stand on her own.
    Gina wrapped the blanket in tidy folds around herself. She lifted her head with a haughty twitch. “You bitch.”
    Too early in the morning, Alhambra put the kettle on a small butane gas ring, the hoo when it reached a boil woke Gina. “Coffee?” she said. “Still no power, so we’ll go into town for the next cup. Phones probably work there.”
    The rain rattle-crashed on the windows, the evil trees slammed their devil branches on the roof of the little house, Gina pulled the covers over her head. “Oh ow oh ow oh ow.”
    “Shshshhh. You’ll annoy the demons. Be brave, oh blackheart babe, be brave.”
    “Hey, I’m dyin here. One eye, purple cheek, held captive in a wilderness hellhole.”
    “What time they expect you at your place of gainful?”
    “When I get there. I’m just the inventory monster trapped in the basement, any shipments get there before I do, they pile up. I suit up, show up, count em, log em, sort em, shelve em. Simple. I do it inna speed-stupor. Work one all-day-all-night shift and it’s done. Commerce recommences. And I get paid. Do it again after I’ve slept some.”
    “You wanta callem, or what?”
    “Yeah. I better. They aren’t likely to call my PO, but they might start callin hospitals. Or morgues.” Gina rolled off the futon onto the floor, crawled around for a while patting the slate. “Cigarette? Grrr. Cigarette? Ahhh.” Inhale. “They think that highly of me. Right. Let’s hava shot of coffee here—I’ll take another Percoset, thank you—then make a break for civilization.” She held out her coffee cup.
    Alhambra poured. “Not civilization. I’m not happy with civilization. Yunno? It don’t work for me.”
    Gina held her coffee cup in both hands, cigarette dangling from her lips, she couldn’t figure out how to sip since the cigarette was in the way and she wasn’t about to let go of the cup with either hand. Mornings were filled with dilemma. She growled, “Civilized is soothing drugs. You have soothing drugs. Ergo. Civilized.” She sucked the cigarette down to the filter, put the cup in one hand, pinched the cigarette out of her mouth, and tossed it into the embers of last night’s fire. She held her hand out for the pill. “Thank you.”
    Alhambra said, “Civilization treats pain with lectures. You know that.”
    “Right. I came all the way up here to get my face mashed in so I could get properly loaded. Got it.” Gina pulled her shirt on. “Beats whatever else I had in mind.”
    They rattled into town, avoiding the fallen branches, hydroplaning through the rivulets streaming across the road. Monte Rio. Vacation Wonderland. Two bridges, one street. No beach in the winter, the river ate it. There was a movie theater in a Quonset hut with an immense mural on its side, runny with water. The metal ridges of the hut blurred the painted trees into menacing shapes. Gina muttered, “And my granma tol me this place was friendly.