Read Online The Jealous Kind by James Lee Burke - Free Book Online Page A

size of a car and fractured glass and scraps of rubber on the asphalt. I realized that once again Saber had driven us into the belly of the beast.
    â€œThat’s where Loren Nichols’s car got burned. Get us out of here,” I said.
    â€œHe lives in that dump?”
    A sagging nineteenth-century two-story white house, with a dirt yard and rain gutters that had rusted into lace, stood on cinder blocks among live oaks whose lichen-crusted limbs seemed about to crush the roof. Loren Nichols was drinking a beer, bare-chested and wearing suspenders, behind a hair-tangled old woman sitting in a wooden chair. Her skin was shriveled like dry paste, her neck tilted as though she had been dropped from a hangman’s noose. Loren was down the steps in a blink, the beer can in his hand, coming hard across the yard. “Come back here, boy. Your ass is grass,” he hollered.
    Saber shot him the bone and kept driving. The beer can smacked against the trunk and rolled across the asphalt.
    â€œStop the car,” I said.
    â€œOver a beer can?” Saber said.
    â€œLet me out.”
    â€œNo, that guy’s amean motor scooter, Aaron. Anybody is who survives Gatesville.”
    I pushed open the door and stepped out with the car still moving. Loren came toward me, his torso as pale and hard-looking as whalebone. I stepped back, raising one hand. “It wasn’t me who torched your heap. Maybe I cut your tires, but I didn’t set the fire.”
    â€œWho did?”
    â€œProbably the guys who threw the Mexican girl out of their car a couple of blocks from here.”
    â€œWhat do you know about the Mexican girl?”
    â€œNothing.”
    â€œThen shut your mouth, asshole. She was my cousin.”
    â€œDon’t be calling me names.”
    â€œWho the fuck do you think you are?”
    â€œA guy who wasn’t looking for a beef until you and your brother and your friends ’fronted me on the street.”
    There were nests of green veins in his forearms and chest. He was breathing through his mouth, his eyes out of focus. He hit me in the sternum with the heel of his hand.
    â€œDon’t do that,” I said.
    â€œI’ll do it all day. You got a shank?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œHow’d you cut our tires if you don’t carry a shank?”
    â€œI said maybe I cut your tires.”
    He thumped me in the forehead. “I can take your skin off, boy.”
    â€œI know that.”
    â€œAdmit you burned my car.”
    â€œI didn’t.”
    He slapped me. “Lie to me again.”
    The side of my face was on fire. I felt tears running down my cheeks. “I didn’t do anything to you guys.”
    â€œYou think you can come up to the Heights and wipe your feet on us? You come up here to dip your wick?”
    â€œI didn’t wipe my feet on anyone.”
    He raised his hand as though to slap me again. “I’ll knock yourhead into the storm sewer. I mean it, I’ll tear it clean off your shoulders. Who he’ped you do it?”
    â€œNo one,” I said, wiping my face.
    Saber had gotten out of the Chevy. The passenger door was still open. I saw him reach under the seat for the tire iron.
    â€œYou chickenshit?” Loren said.
    â€œPeople who fight are weak.”
    He tried to catch my nose between two knuckles. “Don’t jerk away from me, boy. You’re about to get on your knees. That’s the only way this is going to end.”
    I tried to push his hand aside. Saber was walking toward us now, the tire iron behind his leg.
    â€œWhy were you spying on my house?” Loren said.
    â€œWhy would I want to spy on your house? I couldn’t care less about your house.”
    â€œBecause that’s what dingleberries do. I hear you’re a momma’s boy and your old man is a lush.”
    â€œYou don’t know anything about me.”
    â€œGo wash your face. You can use my garden hose.”
    â€œGet back,