Paying Back Jack by Christopher G. Moore Read Free Book Online Page A

at her. He thought about the empty beehive with only the queen bee and the royal jelly inside. The workers had gone walkabout, as the Australians say. “Abandoned” is the right word. Bees, like people, have been known to disappear. Buddhists say everything is impermanent. They understand the world of bees. It’s nature, just not human nature. Wan’s father had been swallowed up into the distant hills, finding sanctuary on the slopes where the Khmer Rouge had once laid down landmines. He’d returned home but only to get his bees. No one had seen him or heard from him. He’d timed his mission to avoid confronting his family. Abandonment of a losing position was an essential skill Jarrett had been taught in the service. Of all the skills he’d learned, he felt this one might be the most underestimated. Like something from an old blues song about how it’s too late to say you’re sorry.

FOUR
    SIX FOOT THREE, New Orleans born and raised, Trace LeLand, who early on acquired the nickname Tracer, had played high school football and been all-state running back for three years. “Fast” didn’t cover Tracer with the ball on an open field; he outran the wind, the rain, his own shadow. He could also catch a football like no one else—he had magic hands, a great sense of timing, and perfect eyesight—from all those carrots his mother fed him when he was young, he liked to tell people. Tracer had had a scholarship to play football at Michigan but had gotten himself into some trouble when a guy from Rhode Island insulted his girlfriend.
    Tracer had been onstage playing saxophone in a honky-tonk bar when the guy, who turned out to be a banker one generation removed from Ireland, just wouldn’t take no for an answer and grabbed his girlfriend by the arm. That was a bad thing to see from the platform, blowing on the tenor sax and watching his girlfriend squirming, some jerk holding her by the wrist. He flew off the stage like a man heading for the end zone, and instead of catching a pass, he found himself standing between his lady and the banker. With the authorities, it didn’t seem to matter much that the banker had thrown the first punch, because after that, Tracer had hit him half a dozen times and was still hitting him as he collapsed on the floor. The bouncers had to drag Tracer off, his fists spinning like windmills, his girlfriend bawling her eyes out.
    The police came and arrested Tracer. The prosecutor filed a felony assault count, and in the plea-bargaining that followed, the trial judgemade some comments that suggested that if Tracer had signed with LSU the way the boy’s mother had told him to, he would have been more lenient. Perhaps the charges would have been dropped. Louisiana is a serious football state and Tracer’s taking an offer from Michigan was something of an insult to LSU. But Tracer had figured the national spotlight of playing for a Big Ten powerhouse would get him closer to one of those hundred-million-dollar pro-football contracts.
    The trial judge made it clear to Tracer that his options had narrowed down to only two: a state correctional facility or the military. The marines suited Tracer, and by volunteering to serve, he could prove to everyone he was a loyal American even though he hadn’t signed to play for LSU. By the time he’d finished basic training, the past—with its potential trial, the lawyers, the judge with owl eyes and jagged, sharp teeth—had blurred. The jail cell where he’d been kept, the interrogation room, the courtroom, and tears falling down his mama’s face: all of it had fallen away like water under a distant bridge.
    Tracer hummed to himself as he drove. Singing was the way he passed the time, that and thinking about the words as he sang. “Women,” he said under his breath, smiling. There was no defending them. No predicting them. The blues were all about women doing crazy