Rogue Island by Bruce DeSilva Read Free Book Online

paper.”
    â€œI thought Channel 10,” I said.
    â€œWhat was that?” Ralph said.
    â€œI thought you were thinking of calling Channel 10.”
    â€œWell, sure,” Ralph said. “That’s the channel Amazing Animals is on, ain’t that right, Glady?”
    â€œNo it ain’t, Ralph. It’s on one of them cable channels.”
    On the way out, I gave a wide birth to Sassy. I wasn’t all that eager to write about Ralph, Gladys, and their amazing animal, so I decided to stop at the health department on the way back to the paper, even though it wasn’t really on the way back.

11
    I made it to the clinic forty minutes before closing and spent half an hour guessing what everyone else in the waiting room was there for.
    The pimply redhead with the gnawed fingernails? She had unprotected sex with her lout of a boyfriend and was afraid she might be pregnant again. The bald guy with the bulbous honker? He wanted to be sure the city council president, who’d picked him up on karaoke night at the Dark Lady, hadn’t passed him AIDS along with the bar nuts. The middle-aged guy in the mirror across the room, the one with the tousled hair, the Dustin Pedroia T-shirt, and the hangdog expression? He hated needles but would have gone under the knife without anesthesia if it meant that the woman with the cartoon-mouse snicker would finally let him.…
    The clerk was calling my name.
    The phlebotomist spiked me three times before she struck a vein. The clerk reaffirmed that the lab was backed up.
    â€œBe seven weeks before the results come back,” she said.
    â€œThis morning, on the phone, they said five.”
    â€œSeven,” she said. “Look at this stack of blood test orders, most of ’em for HIV, which you say no way you got anyway. So what’s your rush?”
    When a Rhode Islander needs something he can’t flat out steal, there are two ways to get it. Need a plumber’s license but can’t pass the state test? Want those fifty parking tickets fixed? Or maybe you’d just like a rush job on an HIV test. Chances are, in a state this small, you know somebody who can help. Maybe your uncle’s on the state plumbing board. Maybe you went to school with a police captain. Maybe the health department clerk is married to your cousin. No? Then you have the option of offering a small gratuity.
    Graft, Rhode Island’s leading service industry, is widely misunderstood by citizens of states you can’t stroll across on your lunch break. Those of us who live here know that it comes in two varieties, good and bad, just like cholesterol. The bad kind enriches politicians and their greedy friends at taxpayers’ expense. The good kind supplements the wages of underpaid government workers, puts braces on their kids’ teeth, builds college funds. Good graft is fat free. It’s biodegradable. It dissolves red tape. Without the lubricant of graft and personal connections, not much would get done in Rhode Island, and nothing at all would happen on time.
    Graft has been part of our heritage since the first colonial governor swapped favors with Captain Kidd. Call me old-fashioned. I took a twenty out of my wallet and slid it across the counter.
    â€œFour weeks,” she said. “Have a nice day.”
    *  *  *
    By the time I got back to the office, Lomax had gone home for dinner. The night city editor, Judy Abbruzzi, occupied his chair.
    â€œThe dog story photos are great,” she said. “Couple of hicks smiling their asses off, big ugly dog slobbering all over them. Even you can’t screw this up enough to keep it off page one.”
    â€œIt’s not ready,” I said.
    â€œYou still got an hour to write,” she said.
    â€œAfter I make a call.”
    *  *  *
    The police chief in Prineville, Oregon, had a peculiar notion about what it means to be a public servant. She was courteous, helpful, and never