HELLz BELLz Read Free Page B

a hard shove and the man on the floor groaned and Todd Sarkanian made his decision.
    * * *
    “I need a smoke,” she said.
    Joe nodded. “Me too. That’s why I went in there. To buy cigarettes.”
    They were leaning on the police cruiser, facing the Jiffy-Quick. The rack of flashers on the police car bathed them in blue. Dusk had turned to night, but the night brought no relief from the New England heat wave. She had told him her name was Suzie (“with a z ”) Shrimpton and that she lived in the eyesore tenement off Old Boston Road. She worked as a waitress in Buck’s Tavern on Narragansett Way and nursed dreams of becoming an actress. She had a boyfriend who was a real shit and was not really her
boyfriend,
and she was about ready to give him the heave-ho, anyway. All this had come out in a nervous rush while they waited for the homicide investigators to arrive.
    “What’s with that church bell?” she asked after a short lull in her monologue. “That church has been empty since that fire nearly gutted it.”
    “I don’t know, but I wish it would stop ringing,” Joe said, folding his arms across his chest.
    “Kinda spooky,” said Suzie. “Bell ringing at night, in a deserted church. Like something out of a Stephen King story.”
    “They used to ring church bells when someone died.”
    “Yeah? Well, maybe it’s ringing for that dead freak in there.” She jerked a thumb at the Jiffy-Quick.
    “But it was ringing before he died.” Joe tried to smile.
    She shrugged her bare shoulders. Joe caught a glimpse of the swell of her breast where the halter-top gaped open at her armpit. He looked away and made himself think of his wife. Sara would be wondering why it was taking him so long to get a pack of cigarettes. An ex-smoker herself, Sara wanted him to quit too, but she didn’t nag him about it.
    “Gary’s gonna be pissed that I’m not back with his beer,” Suzie said. “And I’m in no mood for his shit tonight.”
    “You said you were going to throw him out anyway, right?”
    She looked down at the sidewalk. “Maybe. I mean, I want to get rid of him, but I don’t know if I can, you know? Gary’s got a bad temper, especially when he’s drinking. And he was about two sheets to the wind when I left to come here.”
    “He doesn’t get violent with you, does he?”
    She looked up at Joe, apparently wondering how much she wanted to tell a stranger about her soured love life. “Ah, he man-handles me sometimes, but he’s never hit me. Not on purpose, anyway.” She looked at his hand. “You married?”
    “Ten years this September.”
    “Wow. That’s a long time.”
    “It could be, if you didn’t love the one you were married to.”
    “And you do?”
    “Yes, I do.”
    She looked up the street in the direction of the police station, which was a couple of miles away. “Funny,” she said, “I wouldn’t have figured you for a married man.”
    “Oh? Why is that?”
    She shrugged again. Again Joe’s eyes involuntarily went to the visible flesh of her breast.
    “I dunno. You just don’t look the part. You look too…I dunno. Shit, I gotta have a cigarette. I got a whole damn carton back at the apartment. You think those cops will let me get a pack if I just leave money on the counter?”
    “Maybe. Let’s give it a shot. I’m going into withdrawal.”
    A siren wailed in the distance.
    The church bell rang on.
    A dome of yellowish murk hung over the night-lit city. Traffic whispered over the streets.
    As they walked toward the door of the convenience store, Suzie said, “Thanks for helping me while ago. Most guys would’ve just been looking out for themselves.”
    “I couldn’t just leave you there to get shot. Or stabbed.”
    She smiled for the first time since he’d been in her company. “You’re a real gentleman.”
    “Aw, shucks,” Joe said, kicking at the sidewalk, surprised that he felt like clowning around after seeing what he’d seen in the store. No doubt about it, he was