The Butcher's Granddaughter Read Free Page B

ready.” She thought about that one. “I’m for sure not ready for this. You’re too much for me. Too intense. You’re wonderful, Jay. But I wanted something else.”
    “What?” I said.
    “To get out.”
    “Why?”
    She looked up at me with those eyes like Li’s. They didn’t have the same effect. “Tell him,” I said flatly. She still looked blankly at me. “Tell him why!” I yelled, and wrapped a hand around her neck and stood her up at the end of the bed like a rag doll. The sheet fell away and for a split second there was complete silence, Song’s sudden, brutal nakedness filling the room and freezing us both with her sheer vulnerability.
    Then she screamed and Jay stood up, his .45 swinging in a hard arc. Almost in tandem I pulled my own piece and pushed the muzzle into Song’s soft neck just as Jay settled his aim, rock steady, at my chest.
    “Stop it, Bird. I swear to God I’ll kill you.” This was delivered in a tone of voice he might have used to order a sandwich.
    “First,” I said, keeping my voice from shaking, “you need to hear this. Second, you’ll take us both down.” I could feel my jacket collar sticking to my neck. But if he would protect her from me, he wasn’t going to kill her anymore. I slowly pulled the gun away from her neck, staring him down. “Tell him, Song. Tell him why you want out.”
    At the use of her real name, Jay didn’t say anything. He just stood there, waiting. Later on, that would bother me.
    But Song blew it all—told Jay about her parents, who he thought were dead, about the lie of her whole life. “You were part of it, Jay. Part of the lie. I thought that I loved you but I was wrong. When I slept with Sheff, I guess that pretty much showed me how I felt. I needed out.”
    “Then get out,” he said. It wasn’t hateful. There simply wasn’t anything left to say. The problem was solved. He wanted it to leave.
    I had put my gun away as she spilled her guts. I waited by the door until she got dressed and went past me with her head down and scuttled down the stairs. If she hadn’t been Li’s sister, I would have had to fight the urge to kill her myself.
    Jay was standing in the middle of the apartment, his hands hanging limply at his sides. The gun was all but dropping to the floor from his fingers.
    “I’ll be around,” I said.
    He didn’t speak except to mumble, “Loved her.” Then he dropped the .45’s hammer and tossed it on the bed. I nodded, shut the door, and trudged down the stairs.
     
    I thought I would have to chase her down, but she was waiting for me outside the old building’s thick double doors. She stepped out from behind a scrolled column next to the sidewalk and opened up on me with her fists. They felt like rabbit’s feet thumping softly against my chest. She was still crying a little, and when I got hold of her wrists her mouth took up where her hands left off.
    “Fucker, fucker, fucker! Who the fuck do you think you are! Do you know who I am?”
    She struggled, the gold pendant around her neck getting tangled in her hair. I glanced up and down the block, too aware that I was a white boy manhandling a screaming woman who would look black from ten yards away. Before she could continue the screeching, I dragged her back inside the doors and all but threw her against the stairs. She continued turning the air blue with English words sprinkled liberally into broken Vietnamese phrases whose meanings could not have been compliments. I almost yelled at her to shut up, then simply pulled the gun out instead and she went dead silent in mid-shout. Sighing disgustedly, I paced back and forth in front of her. “Think for a minute,” I said to her. “Use your fucking brain for just a second. Five minutes ago you were an inch from getting your head removed and I pulled you out. I’d be pissed, too, if someone busted in and made me spill my guts to a lover, particularly a lover holding a gun. But before I beat the shit out of him I’d