Shame the Devil by George P. Pelecanos Read Free Book Online Page A

lighters.”
    “I used mine,” said Walters, “to burn villages. I must have torched at least a dozen like that. You could set a really good
     fire to those straw roofs they had. That article say anything about that?”
    “It did say something, now that you mention it.”
    “Course they do know a lot about Vietnam — in New York.”
    “I mentioned your smoking,” said Stephanie, “because, I don’t know, usually in these kinds of groups it seems like everybody
     smokes. Right, Dimitri? It’s unusual that it’s only you who lights up, Bernie.”
    “Yeah, that’s true.” Karras thought of his old rehab group, where he had met Lisa. “I was never a smoker myself. But I used
     to come out of my old group wanting to just throw my stinking clothes away.”
    “The reason I thought of it,” said Stephanie, “was that my husband was in GA for a while. You know, Gamblers Anonymous. I
     ever tell you guys that? Steve used to come home and say that everyone there smoked but him.”
    Karras shifted in his seat. This part — the first mention of the spouse, or the best friend, or the son — invariably made
     him uncomfortable. And Stephanie seemed to be the one who always kicked it off.
    “What’d Steve like?” said Walters. “The ponies?”
    “He liked any kind of action,” said Stephanie, “and May’s was a place where you could always place a bet. Numbers, the over-under,
     horses… Steve liked it all.”
    “So what sent him into GA?” said Wilson. “Must have been one special time where he hit the bottom, right? Always is.”
    Stephanie pushed a strand of her shoulder-length chestnut hair behind her ear. Karras liked to watch her do that; she was
     not a small woman, but her movements were graceful. And she had nice hands.
    “It was this one weekend over the holidays. Must have been the Christmas of ninety-three. Steve had lost a bundle on the weekend
     NFL play-off games, and then a couple hundred more on some college basketball game that same day. We had a family get-together
     that night, Steve’s mother was there — this was the year before she passed away — and Steve got a little looped on whiskey.
     Steve did like his Crown Royal.”
    Wilson chuckled. “Charlie used to tell me, ‘We got this bartender, every night after he closes down the place, he dims the
     lights and pours himself a drink — only one — out of this pretty-ass bottle he keeps up on the top shelf.”
    “That was his routine.” Stephanie smiled. “Anyway, that night, it must have been midnight or so, Steve was really loaded.
     He got on the kitchen phone with his bookie and tried to place a bet, letting him know that he was good for the losses he
     had taken that afternoon. Well, this bookie wasn’t having any of it. Steve blew his cool, started screaming at the guy over
     the phone. Then Steve glanced over and saw his mother sitting at the kitchen table, looking at him with something close to
     disgust in her eyes. And Steve did look like hell that night — sweaty and red faced from the drink. I guess his mother shamed
     him with that look of hers. On Monday morning he made a phone call and got himself into GA. And he never gambled again. He
     was stronger than I thought he would be. He surprised me.”
    “Those programs work,” said Walters, keeping it going. “Surrendering your will to a higher power. I’m telling you, it does
     the trick.”
    Thomas Wilson looked over at Karras, who wore a frown of agitation. Wilson believed in God himself. And he had real affection
     for Bernie Walters. But Bernie never had the good sense to give that bullshit a rest.
    “Ah, come on,” said Karras. “God didn’t help me kick cocaine. It was the love of a woman. It was living, breathing flesh.
     I fell for Lisa and decided that I wanted to sleep next to her for the rest of my life. That to do that, I needed to live.
     And then, when Jimmy was born, there wasn’t any question. I never even thought about coke again. But