No Beast So Fierce by Edward Bunker Read Free Book Online

moved away from his folks, huh?”
    â€œThey died about three years ago, a month apart. He sold the pad and was broke in two months. Horses, whores, and getting high. All he’s got left is a M.G. roadster that’s falling apart.”
    â€œYou should’ve seen the old fool with twenty grand,” Willy continued. “Every night he had a hooker or two on his arm and his chest stuck out. I’ll say one thing, he enjoyed himself while it lasted. He’d have killed himself in a couple more months if he hadn’t run out of bread.”
    â€œWhat’s he doing for a living now?”
    â€œSame shit. Works until he’s eligible for unemployment, then he folds. He still smokes pot, drops pills, and drinks tokay wine, and his mind is still on his prick.” Willy kept talking about Red’s spree, which was really an extension of the spree he’d been on for a dozen years that I’d known him, and a dozen more before that. He seemed to thrive on self-abuse. Still large and powerful, he’d once been handsome. Too afraid of jail to steal, his constant cut-rate bacchanalia brought him in contact with many persons who straddled the line into the underworld—scrap dealers, bartenders, bar owners. He also knew many thieves. The straddlers were willing to purchase bargains even if they were stolen. Red wasn’t actually a “fence”, but he acted as middle man when opportunity presented itself. I’d once noticed a meat truck with a driver who habitually left it unguarded while he stopped for coffee. I knew where to sell cigarettes, liquor, television and sound equipment, business machines, cameras, furs, jewelry in small amounts, clothes, and even spark plugs. Three tons of raw meat was something else. Red knew a man who owned three restaurants and who liked the price we offered. I stole the truck before the driver had stirred the cream in his coffee.
    Red also served as thief’s guide for celebrations after a successful score. Some thieves have been imprisoned so much that they don’t know where to go or what to do even when they have a pocketful of money. Red knew and adored showing others.
    While I thought of Red, Willy had been driving through the streets of a rundown, hilly neighborhood. It was within sight of the downtown area. He turned into a narrow road that turned to dirt as we began ascending a hill. The automobile bounced, its headlights spraying over bare earth and clumps of dry weeds. This part of the city had been built up when flatland was still cheap and the builders had bypassed the hills to avoid construction costs. The buildings at the bottoms were now falling apart and the hills were still bare, while bulldozers erased orange groves fifty miles away.
    On the hilltop I saw a clapboard cabin’s lights through holes in a window shade. I recalled another of Red’s quirks: he never prepared for bed. He slept on sofas, chairs, the floor, whatever was available and appeared most comfortable when he was fully dressed. He undressed and got under the sheets only for sex. Sleep was a waste of precious life as far as he was concerned.
    L&L Red heard the car and came outside. He stood framed in the doorway with a half gallon wine jug dangling beside his hip.
    â€œHey, Big Red, what’s to it, baby?” Willy said.
    â€œNothin’ happenin’. Who’s that with you?”
    â€œCome check for yourself.”
    Red leaned his huge head through the driver’s window and peered into the gloom. “I’ll be a mother—! Max Dembo!”
    â€œWhat’s to it?”
    â€œWhen did you spring?”
    â€œJust this morning.”
    â€œGlad to see you. Ain’t many like you left anymore.” I couldn’t see Red’s face, but in the hot night I could smell him, the sour stench of the elderly.
    â€œCome on inside,” he said.
    On the way indoors, he shook hands, and immediately began raving about his recent