Read Online Up in Honey's Room by Elmore Leonard - Free Book Online Page B

here to supervise the butchering.
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    He was working on the barn, fashioning the interior with chutes and hooks to become an abattoir, paving the floor and putting in drains, when the next one appeared, Honey’s brother, my God, coming in Walter’s market, extending his hand over the counter and saying he was Darcy Deal.
    â€œI always wanted to meet you, Walter, but that goofy sister of mine cut out on you before I got the chance.” Darcy saying, “I know your trade, Walter. As soon as I got my release from prison, where they stuck me for making moonshine and where I learned to cut meat, I got this idea and come directly to you with a moneymaking proposition. You ready? I bring you all the meat you think you can sell and give it to you, no money up front. What are you paying now for beef, around seventeen dollars a hunnert weight? What I deliver won’t cost you nothing. I bring you steers stripped of their hides and bled out, packed in ice. All you do is cut steaks and sell ’em and we split the take down the middle.”
    Walter said, “Where do you come by this meat you deliver free of charge?”
    â€œOut of pastures. I rustle ’em up.”
    Walter asked Honey’s brother if he was aware of the rules and regulations imposed by the government on the sale of meat. How it has to be inspected and approved or they don’t put a stamp on it.
    Darcy said, “Jesus Christ, don’t you see what I’m offering you? Fuck the government, I’ll get you all the meat you want to sell at whatever you ask, not what the government says to charge. You sell it without your customers having to use any ration stamps. Don’t you have German friends dying to serve a big pot roast every Sunday? Aren’t you tired of the government telling you how to run your business? Having days there isn’t any meat to sell?”
    â€œYou’re breaking the law,” Walter said.
    â€œNo shit.”
    â€œYou can go to prison.”
    â€œI’ve been there. You want the meat or not?”
    â€œHow do you kill the animal?”
    â€œShoot her between the eyes with a .45. She throws her head, looks at you cockeyed, and falls down.”
    â€œAre you serious?”
    â€œDon’t the cow have to be dead before you skin her?”
    â€œI could show you a way,” Walter said, “that doesn’t destroy the brains.”
    â€œThat mean we have a deal?”
    It was tempting. Not only make money, take care of Vera Mezwa and Dr. Taylor. Send a few double sirloins to Joe Aubrey.
    Walter said, “But I don’t know you.”
    Darcy said, “The hell you talking about? We was brother-in-laws for Christ sake. I trusted you with my sister, didn’t I? You ever hit her I’d of come here and broke your jaw. No, me and you don’t have nothing to worry about, we’s partners. The only difference, you’re a Kraut and I’m American.”
    Walter said, “Well…” and asked Darcy if he’d seen his sister or spoken to her lately, curious, wondering about Honey, what she was doing.
    â€œI ain’t seen her yet or called,” Darcy said. “I’ll drop by sometime and surprise her.”
    Walter said, “Oh, you know where she lives?”
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    Now the ones were here who needed his help the most, coming at the worst time. Or, was it the best time, if they were to play a part in his destiny?
    The Afrika Korps officers walked in the shop and he knew Jurgen immediately from 1935, still youthful, smiling, the same beautiful boy he had known ten years ago. Walter wanted to put his arms around him—well, take him by the shoulders in a manly way, slip an arm around to pat his back. Ask why he had stopped writing after Poland. Ah, and Otto Penzler, Waffen-SS, of that elite group who chose combat over herding Jews into boxcars. He saidto Otto, “Major, your bearing gives you away. The moment you walked in the door I