Read Online Suspicion of Malice by Barbara Parker - Free Book Online

lounge chair playing Street Fighter, watching the TV screen past his bare feet up on the foot rest. He took off his head phones. "Who was that, your woman?"
    "Yeah." Bobby watched Sean's player, a black guy in a bandanna, silently fire at a kung-fu fighter. Blood spattered the street, then vanished, and the figures suddenly faced each other again.
    Sean said, "You want to go out tonight, bro?"
    "Why do you play that game? It's boring."
    "You want to go out? I've got some cash. We could go over to the Beach."
    "No, I need to get up early." Bobby watched Sean's hand jerk on the joystick. He was supposed to be studying for his final in algebra at Miami-Dade. Going to summer classes was part of his probation. He was smart, but he couldn't get into a regular col lege, the way he'd messed up in high school. Too bad, because his parents could have sent him any where, even Harvard.
    Bobby heard voices from downstairs and went over to the door, easing it open a crack. Diane was screaming about something. A condo on South Beach, closer to the ballet.
    "Then work for it!" her mother yelled. "I never had things handed to me on a silver platter the way you have."
    "I work! I have a job!"
    "Five hundred a week, and you expect us to subsi dize it, and we do. But all we hear is, 'I want more, more.’ Whose new car is that in the driveway? You want a down payment, sell the car."
    "How am I supposed to get around without a car?"
    Sean's father got into it. "Hey! Shut up, both of you. Liz, we can lend her the money."
    "Lend? We're not lending her another dime. She has to learn some responsibility."
    Diane yelled, "You give Sean and Patty whatever they want, and I get shit!"
    "Maybe if you asked instead of demanding —"
    "I'm getting out of here. I'm going back to Jack's."
    "Go."
    "Fine! You're a selfish, pretentious bitch."
    "What? What? Say that again. Say it." Then some screaming and slapping noises. "Filthy mouth ... As much as we've done for you ..."
    "Stop it! Don't!"
    "Liz! Leave her alone. Jesus, right in the middle of Jay's monologue, every goddamn time."
    Then the oldest girl, Patty, running down the hall, her voice moving toward the stairs. "Shut up! Why can't you all be quiet? I'm trying to sleep!"
    Diane was crying. "I hate it here! You can go to hell!" Footsteps came up the stairs then stopped. A door opened and hit the wall.
    Dub shouted, "Are you satisfied, Liz? Are you?"
    "Patty, go back to bed. I'm sorry, honey. Go back to sleep."
    A minute later, Diane's footsteps went the other way, then down the stairs. The front door slammed.
    Bobby quietly closed Sean's door. He used to think these people were all right. Huge house, new cars, everything clean, big refrigerator never empty. One girl in college, another in the ballet, Sean an athlete at Gulliver Prep—before they expelled him.
    "Diane just left."
    "Yeah. They're always scrapping about something. Mom says she's tired of Diane sucking money off of them. Dad just wants it quiet so he can watch TV." Sean jerked the joystick. "We could go to the Grove. It's closer. I got the keys to Dad's Vette."
    "No, man. I'm tired."
    "You only live once, bro."
    Bobby sat on the end of the bed, blinking a little with fatigue. His left ankle was hurting. He'd come down wrong on it tonight, though no one had no ticed. He'd been up too many hours, been rehearsing too hard. When he stayed over, Sean let him sleep in the recliner, but right now Sean was in it, still playing his game. The light of the TV screen was on his face. He looked like his father—chubby cheeks and a big forehead. Sean had a ring in his ear, one in his navel, and another he wore in his eyebrow when he went out. He kept his hair buzzed short, except on top. Bobby used to cut his that way, but it looked ridiculous onstage, so he'd grown it out before auditioning for the company.
    He and Diane had been in the ballet school to gether, and about five years ago, he'd met Sean. Sean had noticed Bobby's tattoo, which