Montana by Gwen Florio Read Free Book Online

slinking around, bellies to the ground like they’re half-snake. They need somebody working them every day or they’ll turn devil. I don’t know what Mary Alice was thinking when she took one on.”
    Even as he said Mary Alice’s name, there was her face, a black-bordered photo smiling from the front page of the local newspaper in the box by the door of Nell’s Cafe. Lola stepped wide around it. She’d force herself to read the story later. Inside, she breathed the familiar, forgotten smells of grease and coffee. Formica tables perched upon islands of wan linoleum, the floor between them scuffed to the boards. Men in feed caps sat around a center table, chairs pushed back to accommodate assertive bellies. They nodded toward Verle, eyes on Lola. The newspaper lay open on the table. Verle led Lola toward a spot beneath a window. Beyond the glass, dun prairie rushed toward the ebony blockade of mountains.
    Lola hung back. “Let’s sit here.” She picked out a table just inside the room, but off to the side. “I thought you said we were going to a cafe.” She’d envisioned gingham tablecloths, maybe daisies in jelly glasses. “Back home, we’d call this a diner.”
    “Call it what you want,” Verle said. “I call it breakfast.” A laminated menu flung choices at her. ScrambledOvereasypoached. WhiteWheatSourdough. BaconSausageHam. Conversation rumbled back to life at the center table. Sunlight spilled across the room. Dust gossamered the air. Caution belatedly kicked in.
    “Who are you, anyway?” Lola asked. “What do you do—besides squire around crime witnesses? How do you know Mary Alice? What were you doing over by her place last night? Do you live next door?”
    Verle tipped his chair back. He wore a denim shirt with the sleeves folded back a triple turn. His throat sagged soft, but hair bristled grey on forearms that meant business. He’d taken off his hat and balanced it on its crown on the chair beside him. That mane was even more impressive in the daylight, shining and senatorial.
    “Do you always wake up this cheerful? Must do wonders for your social life.”
    A teenage boy approached, a hairnet over his braids, coffeepot in hand. Lola recognized one of the youths from the convenience store.
    “She’ll have the steak and eggs,” Verle said to him. “You want a cinnamon bun, too?” he asked Lola. “Nell makes a mean one. Bigger than anything you’ve ever seen.”
    “I don’t eat breakfast,” she told Verle. To the youth, she said, “Just coffee. Black.”
    “She’ll have the steak. How do you like your eggs?”
    “I don’t.”
    “Aw, hell. Just bring them over easy. And some oatmeal for me.”
    The youth poured the coffee in an unsteady stream and left without looking at Lola. “You can drag your jaw up off that floor anytime,” Verle said.
    “Are you deaf?” Lola snapped. “I don’t eat breakfast.” She drained her mug. “Where’s that kid with the goddamn coffee?”
    “Lola, meet Joshua. Joshua, Lola,” Verle said, as the boy reappeared and poured with the automatic movements of a somnambulist. Verle put his hand over his own cup. “You may as well leave that pot here. Set it down and back away slowly. She might bite.”
    Someone chortled. Joshua’s expression changed not at all.
    “That was a joke,” Verle told Joshua’s retreating back. Steam curled around Verle’s fingers. He lifted his hand from the cup and blew on the palm. “Most people,” he said to Lola, “you take them out for a meal, they smile and say thank you.”
    Lola looked again at the newspaper on the other table. “I don’t see myself smiling. Not today.”
    “No. That’s a fact. You do not have a thing to smile about.”
    Lola inclined her head in gratitude of that simple acknowledgement. “You didn’t answer any of my questions.”
    “I did not.”
    “What do you do? What were you doing last night when I saw you?”
    Fine lines threaded his face. When he smiled, they ran into fissures