Swan Song by Robert McCammon Read Free Book Online Page B

would grow old and die without letting anyone love him-because he was afraid, just like her mother was, of getting too close. She saw all that and understood it in a second, and she knew that his pleasure at destroying her garden would end with him, as usual, on his knees in the bathroom over the toilet, and when he was through being sick he would sleep alone and wake up alone. But she could always grow another garden-and she would, in the next place they went to, wherever that was going to be.
    She said, “Uncle Tommy?”
    He stopped dancing, his mouth leering at her and a curse on his lip.
    “I forgive you,” Swan said softly, and the man stared at her as if she’d struck him across the face.
    But Darleen Prescott shouted, “Fuck you!” at him, and the Camaro’s engine fired like the roar of a cannon. Darleen jammed her foot down on the accelerator, laying rubber for thirty feet before the tires caught and rocketed them out of the Highway 15 Trailer Park forever.
    “Where are we going?” Swan asked, cuddling Cookie Monster after the noise of the shrieking tires had faded.
    “Well, I figure we’ll find us a motel to spend the night in. Then I’ll go by the bar in the mornin’ and try to get some money from Frankie.” She shrugged. “Maybe he’ll give me fifty bucks. Maybe.”
    “Are you going back to Uncle Tommy?”
    “No,” Darleen said firmly. “I’m through with him. He’s the meanest man I’ve ever known, and by Christ I can’t understand what I ever saw in him!”
    Swan recalled that she’d said the same thing about both “Uncle” Rick and “Uncle” Alex. She paused thoughtfully, trying to decide whether to ask the question or not, and then she drew a deep breath and said, “Is it true, Mama? What Tommy said about you not knowing who my daddy really was?”
    “Don’t you say that!” she snapped. She riveted her attention on the long ribbon of road. “Don’t you even think such a thing, young lady! I’ve told you before: Your daddy’s a famous rock ‘n’ roll star. He’s got blond, curly hair and blue eyes like yours. The blue eyes of an angel dropped to earth. And can he play a guitar and sing! Can birds fly? Lord, yes! And I’ve told you time and again that as soon as he divorces his wife we’re going to go out and live in Hollywood, California. Won’t that be somethin’? You and me on that Sunset Strip?”
    “Yes, ma’am,” Swan said listlessly. She’d heard that story before. All Swan wanted was to live in one place for more than four or five months, so she could make friends she wouldn’t be afraid of losing, and go to the same school for a whole year. Because she had no friends, she turned all her energy and attention to her flowers and plants, spending hours creating gardens in the rough earth of trailer parks, boarding houses and cheap motels.
    “Let’s get us some music on the radio,” Darleen said. She switched it on, and rock ‘n’ roll blared from the speakers. The volume was turned so loud that Darleen didn’t have to think about the lie that she’d told her daughter time and again; in truth, she only knew that he was a tall, blond hunk whose rubber had broken in mid-thrust. It hadn’t mattered at the time; a party was going on, and in the next room everybody was raising hell, and both Darleen and the hunk were flying high on a mixture of LSD, angel dust and poppers. That had been when she was living in Las Vegas nine years ago, working as a blackjack dealer, and since then she and Swan had lived all over the west, following men who promised to be fun for a while or taking jobs as a topless dancer wherever she could find them.
    Now, though, Darleen didn’t know where they were going. She was sick of Tommy, but she was afraid of him, too; he was too crazy, too mean. It was likely he’d come after them in a day or so if she didn’t get far enough away. Frankie, at the High Noon Saloon where she danced, might advance her some money on her next paycheck,