Adrift in the Sound by Kate Campbell Read Free Book Online

check out the action. The Sonics scored, pulled ahead. The game paused for halftime. With curses and beers and laughter bubbling all around, they came back to the piano. Cadillac Carl explained in a sarcastic tone that the barfly, who claimed he hit her in the eye last night at the tavern, changed her story, went into the police station and told them she’d decided not to press charges after all.
    “Smart,” somebody said under his breath.
    “Yeah, but when’d they let you out?” Fuzzy asked, checked Cadillac’s face to see how the question went down.
    Cadillac Carl studied Fuzzy’s tousled hair and bloodshot eyes, pants sagging loosely from his skinny waist. He set his jaw, narrowed his eyes to hot blue vents. Fuzzy hoisted his pants, scooped fried rice into a mug with quick spoon strokes, like he wasn’t afraid, just busy eating.
    They called him Fuzzy, not for what was growing wildly on his head, but for the tangled thicket elsewhere. His fuzziness used to delight the ladies, but that was before his world narrowed to the point of a needle and all his thoughts focused on his next fix.
    “Got out about five this morning,” Cadillac Carl said to the group. “After the coroner carried out the guy who OD’d in my cell. Real blabber mouth until he checked out.”
    On the TV, the announcer droned, “And, now a news break. NASA says Skylab, the nation’s first orbiting research station, is being prepared for launch. Once in place, the station will be operated by three-man crews. The value of the dollar has dropped more than ten percent and economists see a worsening recession … Officials say young voters are failing to register now that 18 year olds can go to the polls … Now, back to the game. More news at eleven.”
    The front door rattled and Lucky, dragging a leg after an electrical accident when he worked for Puget Power and Light, shuffled in, puffing hard from stumping with his cane the few blocks from his mother’s house. Seeing the grub on the piano, he grabbed a bowl from the kitchen, loaded up, and dumped his chow mein on the rug. Somebody said, “Bummer!”
    “Where’s Greg?” Cadillac Carl asked, checking the mess on the floor. Everyone glanced around.
    “Next door, at Sandy’s.” Rocket finally said, stuffing a broccoli floret into his mouth with his fingers, crunching, swallowing hard. “Marian’s down from Orcas Island. Got here this afternoon. She’s looking for Lizette. That’s her truck outside.”
    Because Lizette had scurried around the backside of the Dog House and shimmied in the basement window, she hadn’t noticed Marian’s truck out front. She felt a head-spinning urgency to talk to Marian now, thought about slithering down the dusty wooden steps and slipping out, making a run for Sandy’s house, but didn’t want to risk calling attention to herself or having to deal with Sandy, who’d pretty much given her the shaft.
    Cadillac Carl leveled a look at Rocket hot enough to melt gum on the sidewalk in January. “The guy owes me, man.”
    “He’s good for it, Carl … Lighten up, would ya? He’s a friend.”
    “Yeah, well I’m not the Bank of fucking America.” Cadillac Carl smeared a grease smudge on the piano with his pinkie, sucked it, worried that Greg was getting dangerously strung out, too. He’d been asking for dope on credit, paying late.
    “How much you need?” Rocket looked around. The Dogs stared at Carl in the sallow light, chewing suspended.
    “I’ll take a hundred now, catch up with Greg for the rest later,” he said in an ominous tone. The Dogs resumed chewing after Rocket went upstairs, but didn’t say much. He came back and counted five twenties onto the piano top.
    “Got a little surprise,” Cadillac Carl said to the huddle around the piano. “Dessert.”
    He felt in the bottom of one of the paper bags pushed into a heap in the middle of the piano top. He pulled out a length of amber-colored rubber tubing and a small waxed paper bag with