Rhode Island Red by Charlotte Carter Read Free Book Online Page A

ago.”
    â€œRight. That was part one. This is part two.”
    She removed the rubber band from the roll and counted the bills. “Nanette, this is five thousand dollars.”
    â€œYes ma’am, I know.”
    â€œWhere did this come from?”
    â€œFrom NYU. It’s a bonus.”
    â€œBonus for what?”
    â€œWell, not exactly a bonus. It’s more like a prize. For some, uh, books that I translated.”
    â€œWell, that’s just wonderful. But what would I look like taking your whole fee for that work? You’re not supporting me, Nanette.”
    â€œIt’s not my whole fee. It’s only half. And I wanted to give it to you now because I’ll probably forget your next six birthdays. It’s a kind of insurance. And besides, haven’t you been talking about repainting the house or something for months now?”
    â€œI want aluminum siding, I said. As if you were listening.”
    â€œWell, that’s what I mean. It’s yours.”
    In the end she did take the money. After pinning me to the wall with a couple of those patented Mom looks. You know, those looks that can mean anything from who’s going to be wearing pajamas at this pajama party? to prison is probably too good for you . I had seen the full panoply of her looks and now, after nearly thirty years, could all but ignore them.
    Mom kissed me and put the bills back in her pocket.
    She keeps saying that one day she’ll take a vacation someplace nice—maybe even go to Europe. But she never will. She keeps promising to visit me and see my apartment, too, at least to meet me midtown for lunch. But I don’t count on that one either. I don’t think she even remembers the last time she was in Manhattan.
    Mom told me all about aluminum siding. We had tea, Lipton’s, which is very hard to get wrong.
    She asked after Aubrey, and inquired whether she still had “that beautiful mink jacket that she saved up for” out of her earnings as a restaurant hostess. I knew that her suspicions about what Aubrey really did for a living were probably much worse than the reality. A go go dancer isn’t a whore, I wanted to tell her. But it was a little late for that. See, the old folks do have a point—once you tell a lie, you have to go on lying; it just works that way.
    A few minutes before it was time for me to go, I went into my old room and called Aubrey. I had to confirm the appointment we’d made. I needed someone there with me when I faced Leman Sweet, and Aubrey had agreed to accompany me; to watch my back, so to speak, since I feared Detective Sweet might get physical again when I told him what I’d done. When I told him even half of what I’d done.
    â€œSo … you really gone do it, huh Nan?” Aubrey asked wearily.
    â€œYeah, I really am.”
    â€œYou be better off taking Walter back.”
    We had taken over a corner of the immense lobby of her apartment building and fashioned an island of sofas and glass tables and easy chairs. I took a cigarette from Aubrey’s pack. As I was striking the match I noticed Leman Sweet swing in through the plate glass doors. As he barrelled along, he was being dogged by an irate doorman who had not been responded to in the manner to which he was accustomed. Sweet finally wheeled on the man and flipped open his badge. The doorman removed his hat and wiped his forehead.
    â€œ That’s him?” Aubrey stage whispered to me.
    â€œOh yeah. That is most definitely him.”
    â€œHe doesn’t look that mean.”
    She was right.
    It was Leman Sweet, all right, but not the same one who had cursed and assaulted me in my own home. He still had the Fu Manchu moustache but he was now dressed in a dark business suit. High polished Florsheims. Good Presbyterian tie. Good haircut. The quietly competent look. Best of all, he wasn’t carrying a musical instrument that might end up smashed to bits against the nearest