Mad River Road Read Free Page B

Gracie-girl?”
    “Thirty-three.”
    “Is that right? You’re older than me? I never knew that.” He shook his head in mock wonderment. “Bet there’s lots about you I don’t know.” He reached over, unbuttoned the top button of her pajamas.
    “Don’t,” she said without moving.
    He opened the second button. “Don’t what?” Not even a
please
, he thought. Typical.
    “You don’t want to do this.”
    “What’s the matter, Gracie? Don’t think I’m good enough for you?” He ripped off the remaining buttons with an almost effortless tug, then pulled her toward him by both halves of her collar. “You know what I think, Gracie? I think you don’t think any man is good enough for you. I think I need to show you the error of your ways.”
    “No, look, this is crazy. You’ll go back to jail. You don’t want that. You’ve been given a second chance. You’re a free man. Why would you want to jeopardize that?”
    “I don’t know. Maybe because you look so darn cute in those little dyke pajamas.”
    “Please. It’s not too late. You can still walk out of here.…”
    “Or maybe because if it hadn’t been for you, I wouldn’t have spent the last twelve months of my life in jail.”
    “You can’t blame me for what happened.…”
    “Why can’t I?”
    “Because I had nothing to do with it.”
    “Really? You didn’t poison anyone’s mind against me?”
    “I didn’t have to.”
    “No, you didn’t
have
to. You just couldn’t help yourself, could you? And look what happened. I lost everything. My job. My family. My freedom.”
    “And you had nothing to do with any of that,” she stated bitterly, that pesky note of defiance once again creeping into her voice.
    “Oh, I’m not saying I’m altogether blameless. I have a temper. I’ll admit that. Sometimes it can get a little out of hand.”
    “You beat her, Ralph. Day in, day out. Every time I saw her, she was covered in fresh bruises.”
    “She was clumsy. I can’t help that she was always walking into things.”
    Gracie shook her head.
    “Where is she?”
    “What?”
    “As soon as I got out, I headed straight for home. And what do I find? A couple of queers have set up housekeeping in my apartment. That’s what I find. And when I ask them what happened to the former tenant, they blink their mascara-covered eyes and tell me they have
absolutely
no idea.
Absolutely
no idea,” he repeated, his voice lifting a full octave on the word. “That’s how this skinny faggot says it, like he’s the queen of fucking England. I almost popped him one right then and there.” He tightened his grip on her collar with one hand, retrieved the knife from his pocket with the other, used his thumb to snap the switchblade into view. “Tell me where she is, Gracie.”
    She was struggling now, frantically kicking her legs, flailing at him with her arms. “I don’t know where she is.”
    Once again his fingers dug into the flesh of her throat. “Tell me where she is or I swear I’ll break your fucking neck.”
    “She left Miami right after you went to jail.”
    “Where’d she go?”
    “I don’t know. She left without telling anyone.”
    With that he knocked her on her back and straddled her, using the switchblade to cut the drawstring of her pajama bottoms even as his hand tightened its death grip on her neck. “You have to the count of three to tell me where she is. One … two …”
    “Please. Don’t do this.”
    “Three.” He pressed the knife against her throat while tugging her pajama bottoms down over her hips.
    “No. Please. I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you.”
    He smiled, loosened his grip just enough for her to catch her breath, raised the switchblade level with her eyes. “Where is she?”
    “She went to California.”
    “California?”
    “To be near her mother.”
    “No. She wouldn’t do that. She knows it’d be the first place I’d think of.”
    “She moved there three months ago. She thought it was safe after all this