God's Pocket - Pete Dexter by Pete Dexter Read Free Book Online Page A

Mickey thought about the kid.
    Whatever kind of shit this was, the kid was in worse.
The man in the car with Bird turned around to watch, and at that
moment the cop pulled into the passing lane, went around the truck,
and stopped the Cadillac.
    It turned out they got a
ticket for following too close.
    * * *
    He got off 295 and headed over to 130, the old truck
route. There were lights and some traffic, but on 130 he wasn't as
worried about what the kid back at the truck stop might do. He still
got back to the flower shop twenty minutes ahead of Bird. He pulled
the truck around to the back, opened one side of the garage and drove
in, and left it there next to his own truck.
    The sun was working, and the place was warmer than it
had been that morning. Mickey walked around the outside of the
building, and then went into the flower shop and talked with Mrs.
Capezio. She was worried that Bird was working too hard.
    "Arthur's nerves ain't what they was," she
said. "He went to the doctor, they said his pressure's too high.
I don't know, I tell him to have faith in God but he don't seem to
think things is going to work out." The old woman shook her
head. "This is bad business, started with poor Mr. Bruno.
Arthur's thinkin' all the time, and you know that ain't good for him,
Mickey .... "
    Fifteen minutes later Bird parked the car on the
sidewalk in front of the shop. The man with piss on his shoes was
gone. Bird came in and kissed his aunt on the cheek. "They
didn't get the electric back on, Sophie?"
    "They say very soon, Arthur," she said.
"They say not to worry, have confidence in your electric
company."
    Mickey followed Bird through the flower cooler and
the meat cooler, all the way back to the truck. There were windows
back there, covered with shades, about twelve feet up the walls, so
you could see without a flashlight. Bird wasn't talking, which wasn't
like him. "You got a problem with somebody?" Mickey asked.
    "Sally? No, he's out of it. He was only along,
you know. To see it all went down." He ran his hands through his
hair. "We got a little business to talk over, Mick."
    Mickey did not like the way that sounded.
    "See, I got a problem. I didn't especially even
want to do the job today, even before the fuckin' electric went out,
and I got a cooler full of meat that's been in there a week already.
Even before that, I didn't want it because of a problem I'm havin'."
    Mickey noticed again that Bird was scared. "You
don't have the seven hundred?" he said. Bird held out his arms.
Embarrassed and scared, trying to hold it together.
    "Somethin' is goin' on," he said. "They
hit Angelo, all right. He was a nice old man, but they want A.C. Then
they hit Chicken Man. He gives them A.C., brings in shit the old man
wouldn't allow, I mean he's bringin' it in in suitcases, and they hit
him too. And Frank and Chickie and fourteen other guys, some of them
don't even make sense. Nobodies. And it's changin' things all over.
Business . . ." .
    Mickey said, "Forget it. I'm doin' all right."
His lies always sounded like lies. "When you got it, you can
give it to me then.”
    "Take some of the meat," Bird said. He took
a set of keys out of his shirt pocket and opened the locks on the
reefer. He opened one of the doors. The meat had been loaded in a
hurry, l50-pound sides thrown in there any way they landed. Each side
had been put into a gauze envelope for shipping. With arrows, it
could of been a hundred-year-old massacre.
    "I can't do nothin' with that," Mickey
said. "It ain't even cut." Bird was staring into the
reefer.
    "What the fuck, Mick? What the fuck are they
tryin' to tell me here?"
    "I don't know these people, Bird,” he said. "I
never dealt with them, so I don't know. " Bird was still staring
into the truck. "Lemme help you get it in the cooler."
    Mickey took off his shirt, and he and Bird picked up
one of the sides of beef. It kept slipping out of Bird's hands, but
they got it into the cooler, stumbling in the dark, and put it on