The Devil's Right Hand by J.D. Rhoades Read Free Book Online Page B

she
thought was sexy, but served only to give the impression of a sulky
child. The year since they had seen one another had not been kind
to her. Leonard noticed her pallor, the bags under her eyes, the
slight trembling as she took a cigarette out of the pack on the
hall table and lit it.
    “ We need a place to stay for a couple
days, sis,” Leonard said. “Can we come in and talk about
it?”
    “ You are in,” she said, then sighed.
“Okay, c’mon. I think there’s some beers in the fridge.” She turned
and walked back into the house. DeWayne and Leonard followed. A
short hallway led towards the living room. A door to the right
about halfway down the hallway opened into the kitchen. Leonard
dropped the bag on the floor across from the kitchen
door.
    “ Look like you’re sleepin’ late, Crys,”
DeWayne said. “Livin’ a life o’ leisure, huh?”
    “ Fuck you, DeWayne,” she said. She sat
at the kitchen table, which was piled with newspapers. She gestured
at the fridge. “Help yourselves.”
    There was no beer in the refrigerator, and no
food other than a jar of mustard and a can of cat food with a
plastic lid.Finally, DeWayne located a half-empty bottle of Popov
Vodka in the freezer. He made a happy noise and sat down at the
table across from Crystal. He took a drink straight from the
bottle.
    She looked from one to the other with a
mixture of resentment and resignation. “Well?” she said. “What’s
all this about?”
    Leonard explained the situation to her. Her
expression never changed. He finished by saying, “So we just need
to lay up here for a couple days, till we can figger out where to
go. Okay, sis?”
    She blew out a long streamer of smoke. “Yeah,
okay,” she said finally. “But y’all gotta be careful. This is a
quiet neighborhood. People work nights, sleep days. You start
raisin’ hell,” she looked at DeWayne, “and you’re gonna have the
cops all over this place.”
    DeWayne gave her a lopsided grin and took
another pull from the bottle. “No problemo, sweet thing,” he
said.
    There was a muffled beeping noise from the
handbag hung over one of the kitchen chairs. “Shit,” Crystal said.
“What time is it?”
    Leonard looked at the clock over the stove.
It was stopped. “Ahhh...about five-thirty,” he guessed.
    Crystal swore under her breath. She pulled a
small black beeper out of the purse and looked at the screen. She
shook her head. She picked an old-style rotary phone up off the
floor next to the table and dialed.
    “ Yeah, it’s me,” she said. She listened
for a moment. “I can’t tonight,” she said. “I got company.” There
was a burst of angry speech on the other end. “No, no, it’s
not  I’m not  she was having trouble getting a word out.
Finally, the voice on the other end said something that caused her
eyes to widen. “Okay,” she said. “Okay, I’ll be there as soon as I
can. I just got up. I will. I will, I promise.” She hung up the
phone and looked off
    into the distance for a moment, chewing her
lower lip. “I gotta go,” she said, and stood up. “I gotta go to
work.”
    Leonard and DeWayne looked at each other.
“Hey, Crys,” DeWayne said finally, if your boss is givin’ you any
trouble, we can, you know...”
    “ No, no,” she said. “It’ll be alright.
It’s okay. They’re just-- short-handed.”
    “ At a titty
bar ?” DeWayne said.
    Her eyes narrowed and snapped around to bear
on DeWayne. “You mind your own damn business, DeWayne, you
hear?”
    Both of the men put up their hands. “Easy,
Crys, take it easy,” Leonard said. He used the soothing tone of
voice he had developed through years of intercession between his
sister and their cousin. Crystal got up and walked out of the
kitchen.
    “ The fuck’s eating her?” DeWayne
wondered. Leonard shrugged. “Whatever,” he said. “We need to get us
some food. And we’re outta beer.” He stood up, put his hands in the
middle of his back and stretched.