Read Online The Devil's Only Friend by Mitchell Bartoy - Free Book Online

was in his shirtsleeves, and he was rubbing his arms from the cold. “I wanted to apologize for my wife. I heard she really gave it to you.”
    â€œI’ve been smacked up by plenty of women.”
    â€œShe worries about the girls,” he said. “I was gone for so long, and now—”
    â€œNext time I’ll know,” I said. “She won’t get a drop on me. Kids or no kids, she gets the hard ticket out.”
    He smiled an empty smile, sucked a drag from his butt, and laughed the smoke out dryly. “It’s only fair,” he said. “It’s only right. She won’t give you no more trouble. She’s sorry.” He glanced around my place, and I could see that he had an interest in the papers on my little table.
    â€œI’m about to hit the hay,” I told him, though the night was still young. “If that’s all you had to say.”
    â€œOkay! I only wanted to tell you how sorry I am.”
    â€œIt’s nothing.”
    â€œShe’s a good woman,” said Federle. “She deserves to have a good life.”
    â€œWell, I don’t stand in the way, so long as she keeps her hands to herself.”
    â€œSure, sure.” Federle tried to grin again, and this time it came out with a bit of feeling. “I’ll tell her you’re not mad. Is that all right?”
    â€œTell her what you want to.”
    â€œOkay, Pete.” He made his way back to the window and hoisted a leg up on the sill. “I don’t have a key to get back in my door,” he said.
    I could see that it was hard for him to move through the window and out onto the stairs. He was still young enough to have a spring in his step, but when he moved, something held him back. It seemed likely that he had taken some injury in the fighting. He would not have been sent home unless he couldn’t go on. Maybe he’s got a wooden leg, I thought. Or two wooden legs. But for the time I didn’t care to ask him about it. If he had to tell me, I knew he wouldn’t be able to keep it corked up.
    After he was gone, I closed the window and turned the latch to lock it. I’m sure I did. While Ray Federle was still clanging up the metal stairs, I pulled down the shade and tried to think of a place to stash Lloyd’s papers. I began to get thirsty for a drink.
    *   *   *
    I went better than two hundred pounds, even if some of it had turned to lard by then. I told myself that they must have come into my room at two or three in the morning—it’s the only part of the night when my sleep gets so deep. To soothe my conscience, I told myself that they must have clobbered me in my bed right away, or maybe it was ether or chloroform. Either way, sure, I had the welts to show they didn’t want me squawking while I went. If I ever looked closely at the little room I kept, at the way my building was set up, it might not have seemed possible that they could have carried me out without rousting the whole place given the size of me and the general cheapness of the lumber that went into the walls and floor. What a story! In my shorts they took me out and carried me to a car or a truck and drove me some distance across town. They must have, I thought, they must have—or else I sleepwalked into it, and that doesn’t seem likely.
    How could they have done it without anyone hearing? First thing I remember after lying down to bed is my feet in the water. It felt like swimming up out of a deep sleep, struggling to wake yourself up inside that darker world because your dream or your nightmare in some way matches up with the real world. If someone’s knocking hard at your door in real life, you might dream about chopping down a tree with a hatchet. Because my feet were wet, I remember thinking that I was set to pee the bed, and so I forced myself to come to my senses.
    My head got clear pretty quick.
    Not much light came into the room, but I saw