Fiends by John Farris Read Free Book Online Page A

supermarket checker and the cash from Marjory's two jobs. She worked three days a week as a mother's helper, and on Tuesdays and Thursdays she fixed lunch for a group of shut-ins at the Sublimity Trailer Park, then read to them for an hour. Relatives had always been generous with the bounty from their summer gardens, hen houses, and fishing trips, so it wasn't as if they'd ever starve to death; but an injustice had been done to them.
    As far as Marjory was concerned, there was only Right or Wrong: she did not recognize gray areas, such as the vast earthly limbo created by bureaucrats. She hadn't made up her mind yet whether she would become a lawyer for the downtrodden, someone with real guts like William Kuntsler, or a crusading journalist, but the day would dawn when no one would dare to give Marjory Waller the runaround.
    They were across the river and in Caskey County, a few minutes from home, when Marjory looked up and saw a flashing red light in the rearview mirror.
    "Hey, Enid, it's Deputy Dawg."
    The sheriffs car pulled even with them and Ted Lufford honked.
    "Make it short, Enid, okay?" Marjory said, and she pulled off the road.
    Ted Lufford got out of his patrol car and walked back to Enid's side of the Plymouth. He was tall and almost hipless and sauntered beautifully, not cocky but cool, like John Wayne before he got older and put on a paunch. Ted was going to get one, eventually: he liked his beer too much. He was a 180 bowler and went bird shooting a lot. Other than that there wasn't much to say about Ted Lufford, except that he owned the distinction of being the only deputy sheriff in Caskey County who didn't have a relative doing time somewhere.
    He leaned on the Plymouth and looked in at them. "What d'you say, Marjory? Hi, Nuggins."
    Marjory didn't know where the pet name had come from and was reluctant to ask Enid. Bad enough they were at the pet-name stage, but I lien by Marjory's reckoning they'd been sleeping together for at least a month. Not Enid's first affair, Marjory was sure, but probably no more than her third since mama and Daddy Lee had died. Before that Enid wouldn't even kiss a boy at a High Creek Baptist Church weekend retreat. In the midst of her chaste life a minor demon had popped up, like a pimple on the chin of the Madonna.
    "Hi, Ted."
    Marjory said, "The body's in the trunk, Awfuhsur. I don't know what come over me. I just couldn't rightly stand it, night after night for thutty-seven years, settin' across the table from the Mister while he gummed his pork chops and dribbled them crumbs all over my nice clean oilcloth."
    "Don't mind her," Enid said with a grin, "she's morbid today."
    "I think the old ladies are getting to you, Marj."
    "They have some very interesting stories to tell."
    "Going to the Peace March this weekend?"
    "My ride fell through."
    "What she means is," Enid said, "I put my foot down."
    Ted Lufford turned his attention to Enid, who was waiting wide-eyed for a quick kiss. Marjory tapped her fingers on the steering wheel and tuned them out while they negotiated conflicts in their schedules for the next week or so. Then Ted straightened and popped his chewing gum, which Marjory always found endearing. The radio in the patrol car was squawking something urgent.
    "See you Sunday, Marj. 'Bye, Nuggins." He jogged back to the patrol car with one hand on his holster and screeched away in a gravel-spitting U-turn, siren pitched high.
    Marjory said, "The cops must think all the bad guys are stone-deaf."
    "Probably just a traffic accident, it's that time of day."
    "Yeh, let's go home, I'm starving."
    But when they pulled up beside the frame house on Old Forge Road, Enid rubbed her forehead and said, "I need to lie down until about five-thirty, Marjory. Can we eat then?"
    "Are you okay?"
    "I think I'm getting my friend."
    "Your what? It's not a friend. Why don't you call it what it is? It's cramps and gas pains and sore breasts and bleeding like a faucet and raunchy, yucky tampons