Going Nowhere Fast by Gar Anthony Haywood Read Free Book Online

They're always just missing, coming within inches of doing the right thing before drifting off to do the wrong one. They fail by the merest fractions of time, space, and cab fare.
    Even Mo. She isn't as bad as the others, no, but she has her moments.
    "Now, Mom, don't get excited, but I think I should warn you about something," she said as soon as I picked up the phone. It was as if she were calling me of her own accord, and not in response to the message I had left on her answering machine an hour ago, telling her where her father and I could be reached.
    "We know," I said.
    "Bad Dog was by my place a few weeks ago, and I think he went through my mail. I'm not sure, but I think he knows where you guys are, and intends to go out there looking for you."
    "We know," I said again.
    "You know? What do you mean, you know?"
    "I mean, your brother's been with us now for almost two days. But thanks for the warning, just the same. It's good to know there's always someone there to alert your father and me to life-threatening disasters that happened to us over forty-eight hours ago, just in case we failed to notice on our own."
    "He's already there?"
    "Yes, Mo. He's already here. He slipped you a curve and flew to Arizona, rather than walk the whole way."
    "All right, Mother," my daughter said, no doubt sensing a well-deserved guilt complex coming on. "I'm sorry. I should have called you and Daddy earlier, obviously."
    "Don't be silly. You only had two weeks."
    "Listen. Are you going to be civil, or do I have to ask you to put my father on the phone?"
    "Go ahead. See how much good it'll do you."
    We both laughed. We do a lot of that, Mo and I.
    "So tell me," she said. "What's he up to this time? Or do I want to know?"
    I told her everything, from my discovery of Bad Dog in our closet to the scene involving Dozer Meadows at the trailer park less than two hours ago. Naturally, she interrupted me every thirty seconds or so to ask if I was joking, but overall she took the news rather well. Her initial comment aside, anyway.
    "Let me kill him, Mom. Please. I'm an attorney, I know how to get away with these things."
    "You're being judgmental, Mo," I said.
    "Mother, he's involved you two in a homicide this time! That's just a tad more serious than petty larceny, you know."
    "Now, Mo, we all agreed we weren't going to talk about that incident anymore, didn't we? Theodore told us he didn't know those encyclopedias were written in Spanish, and the judge believed him."
    "The judge threw the case out of court for lack of evidence, Mother. Not because he thought Dog was innocent."
    "All the same. Your father and I are not completely convinced he had anything to do with that dead man. He just turned up at an awkward time, that's all."
    Mo made a sound conveying one part amusement, three parts disgust, but she didn't pursue her argument any further. She just said, "I think maybe I'd better come down there."
    "No, no, no. Absolutely not."
    I could see her and Big Joe now, drawing lots to see who would get Dog's clothes after the crucifixion.
    "Why not?"
    "Because it isn't necessary. Your father and I can handle this ourselves."
    "Really? How?"
    "By giving him one more chance to tell us the truth. And I mean every word of it, this time."
    Sitting on the bed nearby in our hotel cabin, his father towering over him like the sword of Damocles, Bad Dog heard this and turned to face me, sweating king-size bullets.
    "And if he doesn't tell you the truth?" Mo asked.
    "We'll cross that bridge when we come to it," I said.
    She didn't much care for that answer, of course, but I guess I'd worn her down to the point where she lacked the strength to press the issue. She just sighed with heavy heart and asked me for the name and number of the investigating officer who was handling our case for the Sheriff's Department, saying she intended to call him as soon as we were through, just to see how things were going.
    "Be polite to the man, Mo," I told her, after I'd given