Stick Read Free Page B

to use only a portion of his energy. He said, “It’s dumb to get mad at the help for what the master’s doing. I got a young lady waiting out’n the living room wants to proposition me . . .”
    Moke’s voice said, “You calling that little piss squirt my master? Jeez-us Christ.”
    It stopped Chucky cold. He cocked his head, looking at the telephone machine on his desk.
    â€œThere may be hope for you yet,” he said, beginning slowly. “I’ve seen white boys, fine young men, take on that greaseball strut, that curl to the lip, andland in a federal correction facility for showing off. Isn’t anything the DEA despises worse’n a white boy turned spic or hippie on ’em. You worked for me I’d dress you up, Mr. Moke.”
    â€œThank the Lord Jesus I don’t,” Moke’s voice said, still not hiding that unruly twang.
    Push him some more. “You believe,” Chucky said, “I can’t change your life or even bring it to a close?”
    â€œI would like to see you step up and try,” Moke’s voice said, with enough pure bottomland in it to make Chucky break into a grin as he stepped over to the tree and exchanged the yachting cap for the big straw cowboy hat.
    He reached back in his mind and across the river then—take Crump Boulevard from the VA hospital—all the way over to West Memphis to get more of a shitkicker edge to his tone and said, “Tell me something, I’m curious. Where you from? I’m going to say . . .  you ready? I’m going to say inside of fifty miles of some snake bend in the Red River. Am I right or wrong?”
    There was a long hesitation before Moke’s voice said, “How’d you pick that out?”
    â€œI’m right, huh? Where you from?”
    â€œTexarkana.”
    â€œYou don’t mean to tell me. Come on,” Chucky said, “I was going to say Texarkana and I chickened out. I just had a strange feeling.”
    â€œYou did?”
    â€œListen, tell me something else. What’s a cowboy like you doing working for a pack of breeds?”
    â€œMaking wages,” Moke’s voice said.
    Chucky waited a moment, holding himself still. “I bet you’ve never been turned loose, kicked outta the chute, so to speak. You know what I’m saying? Allowed to show what you can do.”
    â€œI bet I haven’t neither.”
    â€œYou don’t take part in that weird santería shit, do you?”
    â€œThey start painting chickens I go on over to Neon Leon’s have a cold beer.”
    Chucky waited again. It was hard.
    â€œHey. I just had a thought. What would you say to coming by here for a few cold ones, tell some lies? Say tomorrow? I got a hunch about something.”
    â€œWhat’s that?”
    â€œI don’t want to talk about it over the phone. Let’s wait till tomorrow.”
    â€œI suppose I could stop by,” Moke’s natural voice said.
    â€œFine,” Chucky said. “Yeah, hey. Tell that weird Cuban I need a word with him. You suppose you could do that for me?”
    â€œI’ll see what he says,” Moke’s voice said.
    â€œShake her easy,” Chucky said.
    He sighed, worn out, switched off the system. Like trying to get a little girl back in olden times to take off her panties. It was hard labor, what you had to do to cover your ass and stay ahead. Work work work:
    Moke did strongarm chores for the Cuban. Moke would be a dandy choice—dumb, eager and right there—to take the Cuban out should the need arise.

3
    SHOTGUN NEWS, KYLE MCLAREN LEARNED, offered a lot more than shotguns. It was a tabloid-size catalogue of military weapons and gear: rifles, handguns, nasty-looking submachine guns, knives, machetes, steel whips . . .  steel whips?  . . .  Dutch army helmets, mustard gas in a handy ten-ounce aerosol container . . .
    It occurred to