Read Online The Long Good Boy by Carol Lea Benjamin - Free Book Online Page B

bad. I got to tell you, in case you got to go, it’s filthy, the sink, the toilet, the floor. Mens. They never think to spray a little Fantastik, wipe things up once in a while. But it beats the street. That’s for sure.”
    â€œAnd what about the lock, Chi Chi?”
    â€œA latch. You know, like on a screen door. What’s up?”
    â€œI have to get in there, remember?”
    â€œOh, right. You wanna check out the paperwork.”
    â€œRight. One more thing, the toilet?”
    â€œSeat’s always up.”
    I laughed. “No, not that. But that’s good you told me that. That helps a lot. What I want to know, is it next to the wall with the window?”
    â€œRight there. Those butchers, they can sit on the pot and smoke, knock they’s ashes out the window without getting up. Me, I’m an inch or two too short. You, too. But you don’t smoke anyway, so no problem, and the way they keep the place, you could use the floor.”
    â€œChi Chi, you’re fantastic. You ever want to quit hooking, I’ll hire you on.”
    â€œSame here, Rachel. You get dolled up right, honey, you’d be real popular on the stroll, especially if you go blond, like me. They’s some of them, they come here, it’s more convenient for them than the Bronx, but they got a yen for white meat. Hard to find on this stroll. Some pale PRs, you know, but that’s about it. Your skin, your blue eyes, you go blond, you’d clean up.”
    I laughed, and she did, too. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
    By now it was dark, and I could get to work. I told Dashiell to stay and reached for the first low branch on the tree, which was just a bit too high for me to get, the same inch or two that would prevent me from sitting on the toilet at Keller’s and using the window as an ashtray. So I went back out to the sidewalk and found the box I’d used the night before to get up to the sidewalk bridge. With that, and one of the boards for an extra inch, I was able to reach the branch with both hands. Holding on, I walked myself far enough up the trunk that I could climb onto the first branch. From there, it was easy. I had the building on one side, the tree on the other, and braced one way or the other, found places to step until I was up on the old, flat roof of Jeffrey’s Poultry Market.
    Testing the roof first with my hands, then gingerly with one foot, I carefully walked across to the other side, knelt down, and looked over the front. Even though it was only a two-story building, everything swirled in a most unpleasant way, starting with my stomach. From the roof, the bathroom window seemed much farther away than it had from below, and with my problem with heights, I didn’t think there was any way I could lower myself to where it was, break the glass, undo the lock, and get inside by this route.
    I backed up and stood. That’s when I saw it, way in the back of the roof, the moonlight reflecting off something. Crouching again so that I’d be less obvious, even on the dark deserted street, I duckwalked to the back of the roof and found a small skylight. I could see from there that the building abutted the one behind it. A skylight would be the only way to get natural light or ventilation for a room in the back of the building, a way to make an inhabitable space more user-friendly. The glass part of the skylight had screening in it, like the windows next door. But the frame looked old and rusty. I slipped my hand into my jacket pocket and took out my pocketknife, wedging it under the frame and jiggling it around.

9
    He’s My Right-Hand Man
    â€œLook at you!” Chi Chi chided. “You was absent the day they taught personal hygiene? You don’ even know to take the dust bunnies out of your hair before you meet up with a friend?” She reached forward, bent my head down, and began plucking things out of my hair, as if we were chimps reinforcing our