Get Shorty Read Free Page A

nudged the stack of newspapers with a toe of his cream-colored perforated shoes that matched his slacks and sport shirt. The front page on top said “TransAm Crash Kills 117.” Chili watched Bones toe his way through editions with headlines that said “Winds Probed in Crash” . . . “Windshear Warning Was Issued” . . . “Nightmare Descends Soon After Farewells” . . . getting down to a page of small photographs, head shots, and a line that read, “Special Report: The Tragic Toll.”
    â€œHis wife told me he was on the flight,” Chili said. “I kept checking till I saw, yeah, he was.”
    â€œHis picture in here?”
    â€œNear the bottom. You have to turn the paper over.”
    Bones still wasn’t going to bend down, strain himself. He looked up from the newspapers. “Maybe he took out flight insurance. Check with the wife.”
    â€œIt’s your book now,” Chili said. “You want to check it out, go ahead.”
    The colored guy came over from the counter to stand next to the chair.
    Ray Bones said, “Six weeks’ juice is twenty-seven hunnerd on top of the fifteen you gave him. Get it from the guy’s wife or out of your pocket, I don’t give a fuck. You don’t hand me a book with a miss in it.”
    â€œPayback time,” Chili said. “You know that coat? I gave it to the Salvation Army two years ago.”
    â€œWhat coat?” Bones said.
    He knew.
    The colored guy stood close, staring into Chili’s face, while Bones worked on the Michael Douglas hairdo, shearing off a handful at a time with a pair of scissors, telling Chili it was to remind him when he looked in the mirror he owed fifteen plus whatever the juice, right? The juice would keep running till he paid. Chili sat still, hearing the scissors snip-snipping away, knowing it had nothing to do with money. He was being paid back again, this time for reminding Ray Bones he had a scar that showed white where he was getting bald. It was all kid stuff with these guys, the way they acted tough. Like Momo had said, schoolyard bullshit. These guys never grew up. Still, if they were holding a pair of scissors in your face when they told you something, you agreed to it. At least for the time being.
    Chili was still in the chair when the new-wave barbers came back and began to comment, telling him they could perm what was left or give him a moderate spike, shave the sides, laser stripes were popular. Chili told them to cut the shit and even it off. While they worked on him he sat there wondering if it was possible Leo Devoe had taken out flight insurance or if the wife had thought about suing the airline. It was something he could mention to her.
    But what happened when he dropped by their house in North Miami—the idea, see what he could find out about any insurance—the wife, Fay, stopped him cold. She said, “I wish he really was dead, the son of a bitch.”
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    She didn’t say it right away, not till they were out on the patio with vodka and tonics, in the dark.
    Chili knew Fay from having stopped by to pick up the weekly four-fifty and they’d sit here waiting for Leo to get home after a day at Gulfstream. Fay was a quiet type, from a small town upstate, Mt. Dora, not bad looking but worn thin in her sundress from working at the cleaner’s in that heat while Leo was out betting horses. They’d sit here trying to make conversation with nothing in common but Leo, Chili, every once in a while, catching her gaze during a silence, seeing her eyes and feeling it was there if he wanted it. Though he couldn’t imagine Fay getting excited, changing her expression much. What did a shy woman stuck with a loser think about? Leo would appear, strut out on the patio and count the four-fifty off a roll, nothing to it. Or he’d come shaking his head, beat, saying he’d have it tomorrow for sure. Chili never threatened