Rhode Island Red Read Free Page A

pants and a dirty flannel shirt buttoned right up to the neck. His Fu Manchu moustache and battered old guitar completed the picture.
    â€œOkay, Leman, Okay!” shouted Butko, gripping the man by the arm. Leman shook him off violently. He walked over to the covered body and straddled it.
    I heard him ask the corpse in a weird voice: “Charlie, is that you?”
    The rest of what he said was lost to me. Just muffled, strangling sounds—“Oh, my, oh, my,” I thought I heard him say. Or perhaps it was “Oh, man, oh, man.”
    In a minute he began to cry. It was something wild and hideous.
    And then he picked up the guitar and smashed it into smithereens against the cabinet. Every soul in the room ran—ran like hell—away from this Leman.
    I sat in the living room on the tatty divan I had paid my neighbor’s kids to haul upstairs last year. The cops and the rest of the men had slowly filtered back into the kitchen and were wrapping things up. I heard the labored, inevitable sound of Sig being dragged across the kitchen in his plastic shroud. Finally, he was out of my house. The sun was out now.
    â€œTell me a story.”
    I looked up into the dark wide face of Detective Leman Sweet. He hulked over me, sucking the air out of the room.
    â€œI already told him,” I replied, pointing to Butko.
    â€œTell me!”
    I did. The whole story. All the while staring into the bottom of my coffee cup.
    Leman Sweet grinned when I finished talking. He moved even closer to me and undid the top button of his shirt. “You’re a lying cunt,” he stated.
    I got to my feet. He hit me with the heel of his hand, crashing against my shoulder and knocking me back down. The cold coffee in my mug splashed out onto his face. I looked to Butko for help. He never moved.
    â€œDid he fuck you?” Sweet asked.
    â€œNo.”
    â€œYeah, he did. Charlie fucked you. Did you like that?”
    I said nothing. My knees were trembling.
    â€œYou like little white boys, don’t you?”
    I said nothing.
    â€œAnswer me! You … like … white … dick … don’t you!”
    I figured there was nothing to lose. He was going to kill me, anyway. So I got one in: “Actually, I prefer Samoans.”
    Butko laughed.
    â€œYou got Charlie all hot, didn’t you?” Sweet went on. “You turned a trick, didn’t you? What are you—a college girl? You movin’ on up, don’t like to do it the old fashioned way. You want it all—fast. You don’t want to push a mop no more, huh? Got to have it fast. Expensive. So you can keep that cue ball head of yours all clean and smelling sweet.”
    Maybe he will exhaust himself in a few minutes, I thought. If I just sit here. Maybe he’ll stop and go away. Maybe he’ll just die.
    He caught sight of my sax just then. He walked over to it in its open case.
    â€œThis yours? You play it?”
    â€œYes it’s mine, yes I play it.”
    He kicked the case halfway across the room.
    â€œYou play it on the street?”
    â€œAnything in particular you’d like to hear?”
    He came rushing at me.
    â€œLeman!” Butko shouted.
    He got a hold of himself. “Take a good look at me, girl. Because you going to see me again. And you going to talk to me again … Understand?”
    No! I wanted to scream it into his face. No, I do not understand, you moron! But I just sat there.
    At last, he backed off. I heard him cussing as he ran down the stairs.
    Detective Butko looked at me for a long time without speaking. “You better change the lock,” he said finally. “Just to be on the safe side.” I guess that was about as close as I was going to come to getting some concern or sympathy from our public guardians. I chuckled audibly and Butko gave me a funny look.
    He walked back into the kitchen. A few minutes later he was gone.
    I went and closed the door quietly behind