Island Boyz by Graham Salisbury Read Free Book Online Page A

whispered.
    Wayne, seeing the car pull up and, also, for the first time seeing the flashing blue police lights, ran toward Shane and Jimmy, looking for a back door. But the old man stepped in his way and grabbed his shirt as he ran by.
“Dinero,”
he said.
“Dólares.”
    Wayne spat in his face.
    Boom! Wayne was on the floor, one arm twisted up behind him and the old man’s knee jabbing into the small of his back. Wayne winced in pain. “I’m gonna kill . . .
ahhh!
”
    Jimmy gaped, not believing the old man could do what he was doing. Shane saw Mrs. Medeiros at the door, fumbling in her purse for her keys. He jumped up and over the counter and hurried to unlock the door.
    Wayne thrashed and gasped on the floor.
    The old man, tired now of playing around, twisted the knife out of Wayne’s hand and kicked it under the counter. Then he reached into Wayne’s pocket and took back his forty dollars and let Wayne go.
    Wayne stumbled to his feet and took a swing at the old man but missed by a mile.
    Shane had the door open now, and Mrs. Medeiros yelled, “Hold it! Stay where you are!”
    But Wayne ran out the back, shoving Jimmy back against the refried-bean tray as he ran by.
    “Aw, man,” Jimmy said, pulling his hand out of the gooey muck.
    “You!” Mrs. Medeiros called to the old man. “Whatchoo in here making trouble for? Shane, how come the police out there an’ not inside here? What’s going on here?”
    “It was those other guys, not this old man,” Shane said.
    “What other guys? I only saw one.”
    “There was one more.”
    The old man pushed up the brim of his hat with his finger.
“Muchachos, ahora sí que necesito esa cerveza,”
he said.
    Mrs. Medeiros scowled at him. Then to Shane and Jimmy she said, “You boys get to work and close this place down,” and Shane and Jimmy did as she said.
    She went over and sat at a table and motioned for the old man to sit down across from her, which he did.
“¿Pero qué quiere?”
she asked him in his language.
    The old man smiled, broad and full. He took off his hat and covered his heart with it.
“Señora, yo solo quería una cerveza, eso es todo. Solamente una cerveza.”
    Mrs. Medeiros studied him a moment. Then she, too, smiled and the two of them went on in the foreign language that Shane and Jimmy could not understand while they swashed and clanked around behind the counter.
    “Shane, Jimmy,” Mrs. Medeiros called. “I’ll be right back. Let this old man sit here while I’m gone.” She got up and headed for the door with her keys jingling.
    Outside, the cops were easing the handcuffed Corvette driver into the backseat of the police car. Mrs. Medeiros walked out just as they drove away with him.
    “I gotta get a better job,” Jimmy mumbled.
    “Why?”
    “Why? This place is too dangerous, man. Too crazy.”
    “Dangerous? It’s Taco Bell, for crying out loud.”
    “Yeah, but one of these days some crazy going come in here and freak out and somebody going really get hurt and I don’t want it to be me.”
    “Ain’t going be you. Why somebody going hurt you? Us guys, we nothing to anyone who comes in here. We just like the pop machine or the garbage can. They don’t see us. We just workers, part of the machinery. Crazy guys want more glory than us.”
    Jimmy looked at Shane, then shook his head. “You more crazy than the crazies, you know?”
    Shane laughed and looked up as Mrs. Medeiros came back in carrying two bottles of beer. She took them over to the table and handed one to the old man, and the two of them talked and laughed and drank beer together like a couple of old friends from way back.
    After a while Mrs. Medeiros called to Jimmy, “Try bring me one paper and envelope from the office.”
    Jimmy got them and brought them out. Mrs. Medeiros pointed to the old man with her chin, and Jimmy put the paper and envelope down in front of him. Mrs. Medeiros dug a pen out of her purse.
    While the old man wrote something on the paper, Mrs.