KooKooLand by Gloria Norris Read Free Book Online Page A

won’t forget.” Rad or Rat Cliff, now I wasn’t sure. I hoped it wasn’t Rat Cliff.
    Susan went into the back and closed the door. I could hear beer bottles being tossed into a garbage can.
    Jimmy pulled Hank aside and started whispering to him.
    I couldn’t hear what they were saying, so I spied on them like Nancy Drew, trying to pick up clues.
    Hank kept puffing away on his stinky cigar. Except for the cigar, he didn’t look anything like I imagined a millionaire should look. He didn’t wear a top hat or swill champagne like the swells in Fred Astaire movies. He wasn’t even handsome like Jimmy. He was really old—forty-six, twelve years older than Jimmy—and a couple inches shorter. He had a bowlegged walk, but he had a swagger about him, and Jimmy said women were always throwing themselves at him.
    He’s like a bantam rooster, Jimmy explained. A cock of the walk.
    Unlike Jimmy, Hank didn’t like to throw the baloney. He always acted like he had someplace more important to be. If he thought a guy was full of shit, he’d turn his back on him and walk away. Like the guy didn’t even rate a see-you-later-Charlie. If some rube took too long deciding between this rifle and that rifle, he’d order the greenhorn the hell off the premises. But if a guy knew which end of a gun was the business end, if, like Hank, he could track the biggest deer anyone had ever seen for three days until it gave up and said shoot me, he’d give him the goddamn gun for a test run. Or if a guy was like Jimmy and knew how to navigate a canoe through a hurricane to get to the biggest trout anyone had ever seen, then he was in the inner circle and got invited to Hank’s hunting camp on the Allagash River, which was way the hell up near Canada in God’s Country.
    Big wheel or working stiff, judge or jailbird, they all wanted to go to God’s Country with Hank.
    â€œEveryone wants to be his buddy,” Jimmy had once told me, “but nobody really knows him. Hell, I’m as close to him as anybody. We were both merchant seamen, we’re goddamn brothers. But you can’t cross a line with him. You can’t get too chummy. I think that Polish mama of his has her claws into him prettygood. I did some landscaping for her. She’s a tough customer, just like YaYa. I know the type. ‘Go to church or else.’ Nothing’s ever good enough for them unless you’re a goddamn choirboy. Well, that ain’t me and it ain’t Hank.”
    Hank was looking impatient. I edged a little closer to hear how Jimmy’s matchmaking might be progressing.
    â€œI’ve got something you can tap,” I heard Jimmy say. “She’s not bad looking.”
    â€œAfter my wife, who looks like a goddamn movie star, you want to set me up with something that’s ‘not bad looking’? Forget it, Greek.”
    â€œLook, she’s not Ava Gardner, OK, but she’s a nice-looking broad. Dark hair, like you go for. And a sweetheart, real quiet. Won’t break your balls like Doris.”
    â€œDoris can be nice when she wants to be.”
    â€œYou mean when she wants something. Like a new goddamn mink coat.”
    Hank didn’t say anything, just puffed harder on his cigar. Jimmy watched him like a hawk.
    â€œI heard she’s back in town,” Jimmy said. “Did you see her or what?”
    â€œYeah, I saw her last night. So what?”
    â€œSo what? Look at you. You look like you just took the slow boat up the devil’s ass and back.”
    â€œYeah, and you look like the devil’s ass.”
    â€œMan, that broad just divorced you. Forget about her. How many times you gonna chase her tail across the country?”
    â€œNone of your goddamn business, Greek. That’s how many times.”
    â€œIs she back to stay or what?”
    â€œShe wants to sell the house and move out to California.”
    â€œSayonara.