Dead Boys by RICHARD LANGE Read Free Book Online

faint
pop pop pop
of gunfire. I glance at Maria and Sam, but neither reacts, and I tell myself that it’s because they haven’t heard the shots, not that they’ve grown used to the sound.
    Later we watch an old monster movie together, that one about the giant tarantula running amok in the desert. I switch from iced tea to beer. Sam is curled around a pillow on the floor in front of the television, and Maria lies with me on the couch. The weight of the day presses down upon me, and my eyelids grow unbearably heavy. I fall asleep to the sound of a woman screaming. When I awaken after midnight, Maria has moved to the floor, next to Sam, and they’ve both sacked out. I pick Sam up and carry him to bed, then gently rouse Maria, who wobbles into the bathroom.
    Someone famous is selling something cheap on TV. I shut it off. A rustling outside the front door tightens everything in me like a knot. I turn out the light and edge over to the window. Pulling the curtains aside just a bit, I peek out at the porch, but there’s nothing there, just a napkin we missed when we cleaned up. Maria returns in her bathrobe and wants to know what’s wrong. I tell her not to worry, that I’m just paranoid after what happened next door. We share a glass of ice water and go to bed.
    In the morning, Sam’s wading pool is gone.
    M ORIARTY HAS ME meet him up at Lake Hollywood. They call it a lake, but it’s actually a reservoir tucked into the hills where the movie stars live, a concrete-lined hole surrounded by a chain-link fence. Pretty enough, if you squint. Moriarty does six miles a day on the road that circles it, round and round, rain or shine. He makes me feel like a slob.
    I park where he instructed me to and walk over to the fence. The still, black water is covered with a layer of dust that sparkles in the sunlight, and the smog is so thick the trees on the far shore are barely visible. Above me a big house juts out from a hill, propped up by a few spindly wooden supports. The view from the deck must be terrific in October or November, when the air clears; you can probably see all the way to the ocean, and I bet the people who live there step out every evening to lean on the railing and watch the sun set.
    Moriarty pounds past me in a flat-out sprint and continues on for another hundred yards or so before turning around. He returns at a jog, throwing punches.
    “Hey,” he huffs. “How you doing?”
    “I’m good,” I reply.
    He lifts his T-shirt and wipes away the sweat on his face with it. Another runner passes by, and they exchange nods.
    “Wait at your truck,” he says to me.
    I walk across the road and lean against my Nissan. Fingers intertwined behind my head, I stare out at the reservoir and contemplate the golden film of dust that floats upon it. It doesn’t seem very sanitary, this system of storage. Maria’s been after me to spring for bottled water, and I’m beginning to see her point. If the stuff that comes out of our tap originates here, who knows what kind of deadly crap it’s laced with.
    Moriarty is parked a short distance up the road. He pulls a duffel bag out of his trunk. I know the song he’s whistling as he approaches. It’s a Sousa march my dad had a set of dirty lyrics for:
    Oh, the monkey wrapped his tail around the flagpole
    To watch the grass grow
    Right up his asshole.
    Something like that. Used to crack me up when I was a kid.
    Moriarty sets the bag in the bed of my truck and unzips it to show me the sawed-off shotgun inside.
    “There’s a box of shells, too,” he says.
    “Thanks.”
    “Lock it away where the kid can’t get at it. Don’t be stupid.”
    “Come on, man.”
    “Do you know how to use it? You probably won’t have to, because the sound of the shells sliding into the chamber will send your average burglar packing with a pantload, but just in case?”
    “I can’t imagine it’s too difficult.”
    Moriarty grins and closes the bag. “Just point and shoot.”
    An old lady steps