Picking the Ballad's Bones by Elizabeth Ann Scarborough Read Free Book Online Page A

making.
    "Screw the ghost," Harry
Latimer said. "What happened to the little blond gal with all the
foreigners? I mean, the redhead set her
up, right? So those guys were more than a
circus, I'll bet. Probably white slavers or drug runners or something, huh?"
    "Boy, I can't surprise you
with anything!" the bartender said admiringly.
     
    * * *
     
    As soon as the policeman backed out of
the car, Julianne sat up and jerked the scarf off of her head but
the man she had first met came to stand spraddle-legged, looming
over her.
    "Thanks for hiding me," she said,
hoping that her voice sounded calm. "But I need to go now. My
friends will be worried." The man shook his head slowly and knelt
over her knees, reaching his hand forward to stroke her chin. He
said something and for the first time since the explosion had
stolen her hearing she was glad she couldn't hear what it
was.
    Others in the room were less
fortunate, however, and the woman who had been cooking dragged the
two kids who clung to her skirts closer to him. Juli noticed the
kids bailed out pretty quickly, releasing the skirt to stand off to
one side. One of them who must have been at least six stuck his
thumb in his mouth and stared with large dark eyes. The little
girl, probably three or so, danced from one foot to the other with
agitation. The woman waved her free hand in the man's face and
gestured angrily at Juli, making a slit throat sign across her own
neck. The man reached up wearily and shoved the woman away with
such force that she staggered backward several feet with no
furniture to break her fall or to injure her.
    Julianne scooted her feet
up under her, put her back against the wall, and took a careful
survey of who was between her and the door. The Gypsy woman struck,
cuffing her man on the ear, and he turned in his crouch and
backhanded her, following, still not completely upright, to strike
her again. The woman opened her mouth to an ugly snarl, her eyes
showing white all around the irises, and she must have called a
name, for a young girl reached out and
plucked the baby away just before the man struck again, and the woman,
who first staggered back, half fell on him with her hands extended clawlike, her
mouth open in what seemed to Juli a silent scream.
    Her deafness gave Julianne a
detachment from the scene that she was not unhappy to have, as if
she had been able to cut the volume on some sordid soap opera that
was being enacted in front of her. She had to remind herself that
she was the focus of this particular soap, the girl most likely to
end up tied to the railroad tracks. She decided she would rather
deal with the police. The train was still moving but in the cars
beyond were other, less crazed people. If only she hadn't listened
to that damned redhead. Juli knew that Torchy was trouble and now
it looked as if she'd fed Juli to white slavers. The guy who kept
invading her personal space looked as if he definitely had a fate
worse than death in mind for her.
    As the Gypsy woman dragged
the man to the floor, Juli bounded across the legs of two
spectators and three sleeping children and grabbed for the door
handle. She shoved but the door stayed resolutely closed for a
moment. Then she saw the metal plate on the outer edge of the door
and the sign that said push. She pushed, lurched forward through
the door as someone else wedged in behind her, her fingers
frantically outstretched to push the metal panel on the door to the
next car. Hands clung to her waist but she twisted aside and flung
herself against the door, which gave, spilling her forward, into a
dark void full of wild and gamey odors.
     
     

CHAPTER 6
     
    "You in there, Willie MacKai?" a
female voice somewhat less seductive than Torchy's and much
safer-sounding demanded. "You come out of there right
now."
    "Yes, ma'am," Willie said very softly.
"Only please keep your voice down and come and get me out of this
cage without unduly disturbing these—" The flashlight beam fell on
moth-eaten