Portland Noir by Kevin Sampsell Read Free Book Online

has a right to his house, to some peace and quiet. And Sally moved in a few doors down, and she was three years younger than Julia, still in high school. Pretty, sweet. Sally liked a man with some spending money. Julia found out. I told her I had a right to a girl who wanted me. She said she’d divorce me, take all my money, get me fired. All this crap.”
    He paused. I couldn’t say anything. There was no sound from outside, either.
    A cough, and he began again. “One day I came home from work and killed her. Hit her on the head with a frying pan.” That wheezy dry chuckle. “She went down in a heap. I remember the blood came from her head here”—he pointed to a spot above his left ear—“like it was a drinking fountain. I wiped off my fingerprints and dropped the frying pan and ran outta there to pick up Sally for a movie. When I came home, I called the police and said I’d just found her like that, and that I hadn’t been home at all that day cause I’d been out with my girlfriend. Sally backed me up—pretty girl, but dumb as dumb—and they could never prove a thing.”
    “So the truth was that …?”
    “The truth was that I killed her. She knew I was gonna do it, right up until I did it. And then she was dead and by God she really knew it. She wouldn’t ever cross me no more.” The chuckle again, and now its thinness sounded like wires rubbing against each other, scraping and raw. “Some people thought it was me, sure enough, but couldn’t no one ever prove it. And no one ever knew how much that bitch needed killing.”
    I could feel the tears begin in me, the pressure building in my eyes and my sinuses. I swallowed, and my spit seemed to grate along my throat.
    “What’s so funny about that?” I asked. “How is that a joke?”
    He just wheezed and shook his head some more. I felt the hair on my arms stand up, but I forced my face into impassivity.
    “None of my other girlfriends or wives ever tried any of that shit with me again,” he said at last. “Expect they heard about Julia and knew they’d have to shape up. Buried two wives, had girlfriends the whole time. They knew how to keep quiet.”
    “You kept cheating?” I asked. I took pride in my voice’s evenness.
    “Hell, I’m a man, ain’t I? All men cheat.”
    “Mine doesn’t,” I said.
    Henry Lewis laughed out loud, a choking sound that brought up something from deep in his lungs. “He cheats,” Henry Lewis said. “You ain’t caught him, but he cheats.”
    “No, he doesn’t.”
    The wheezing chuckle now, with a shake of the head. “Little girl, you ain’t know shit about men. You and Julia, thinking you can tell a man what to do, how to act. No one can! That’s what makes us men.”
    “Why are you telling me this? If they never caught you, why are you telling me this now?”
    “Maybe just cause I feel like.” He gave me a hard look.
    “You come in here with your little purse and your expensive haircut and the way you pretend you belong here. You ain’t here. None of you are here. It’s like a play for you folks. And maybe I just feel like reminding you it ain’t. Now get out. I’ve got better things to do than teach you how the world is.”
    I stood up, smoothing my pants with my left hand. I gave him a hard, long look; he returned part of it, then turned away. Not scared. Bored. He had killed her, and he didn’t even try to deny it. I suppose no one could touch him now, more than fifty years later. Who would believe me, anyway? He started reading a TV Guide as I stood there. He was old now, a lifetime older. I was fit, twenty-seven, healthy.
    I watched him for a moment.
    “You’re Julia now,” I hissed. He looked up, turning a page. I walked over to him, ripped the magazine from his hands, and tore it in half. The paper was all twisted in my hands.
    He didn’t move, not even his face. That same bored look. He wheezed when he breathed, and his knuckles seemed too big for his hands. The whites of his eyes