The Wrong Man Read Free Page B

for my class on local history and I was trying to force the story down in huge gulps, to take it like medicine—and was surprised to find myself enjoying it. The evil thing lingered just outside the spotlight of my thoughts, and every so often I would look up and think about Rich getting his head split open with a blackjack, but I had made up my mind not to fall to panic until I knew for certain that there was something to panic about. I was almost ready to sigh relief, at least for tonight, when the electric sensor on the door sounded and I marked my place with my forefinger, lifted my eyes, and felt my heart clench to a stop.
    Under the fluorescents Owen Ferguson’s crisp white T-shirt shimmered, his loose khaki pants were pressed and new. His hair was mowed tight to the scalp, darkening the top of a long, insect-looking head that was dented and scarred from his uncountable street fights. The overall effect of him was clean and utilitarian, but somehow disposable. Cheap. The only blemish on his appearance was the line of dark green cursive tattooed at a crooked angle on his neck, under his right ear.
    My mouth fell open and I said, “Hey . . .” Nothing else occurred to me. Owen’s face showed only that slack, somehow demented look of a person whose mind is steel-reinforced against fear. I wondered if he could jump out of a tenth story window and never change that dead-faced expression all the way down to earth. He had tight, thin lips, close-set eyes and a smattering of freckles over the bridge of his nose.
    I couldn’t move as he drew close. I just blinked ahead, cleared my throat and tried to find words that might save me. I didn’t even flinch when he didn’t break stride and sprang forward and socked me under my left eye. I didn’t fall either. I guess my head just snapped over and then back like my neck was a spring.
    “What do you think, bitch?” he said.
    I blinked at him. I still had the paperback in my hand, closed on my finger as if I was going to go back to reading. My other hand, I realized, was now holding my face.
    “You think it’s over or what? You think you and your faggot friend can pull that shit and then you don’t gotta pay?” He sounded a little like Marlon Brando. His voice seemed to be generated in his nasal passages and he had a painful-looking underbite that you didn’t notice until he spoke.  
    “Look, man.” It was a strangled, distant version of my voice. “I didn’t—”
    His hand slapped the glass lottery ticket display that was built into the counter. “ Shut the fuck up! You know what I’m talking about. You know me, right?” He pointed at his own chest. “You know what I’ll do , Homes. You heard about your buddy. I’m gonna be outside.” He seemed to think a moment. “Five hundred bucks,” he said, drilling me with his look. “And don’t give me no stories. You got it in there.” He jabbed a finger at the cash register.
    “Aw, no man, I can’t—”  
    He froze me with another look, his bulldog jaw a challenge, his eyes like little blue pools of congealed gel, his whole head like a wax sculpture some kids had played football with. “Who the fuck you kidding, Homes?” he said. “You think I don’t know what happens in this fucking place? You’re a fucking thief already so don’t even try to blow smoke up my ass.”
    “I’ll lose my job!” I was fighting the whine that wanted to creep into my voice. “I didn’t take anybody’s fucking weed, man. I don’t know what you heard but it’s bullshit.”
    His eyebrows shot up his forehead. His pupils were small as pinpricks in the faded blue irises, but those tiny spots seemed to be pouring forth animosity. He couldn’t believe, evidently, that we were still having this conversation. “Try me,” he said. “Just try me, motherfucker. I want you to.” And he stepped backward and finally released me from his glare, turned around and glided away over the maroon utility mats. I watched him exit the