The Lazarus Heart by Poppy Z. Brite Read Free Book Online Page A

his situation.
    "Jesus, I knew you were a fucking cop," the kid said, and when Frank did open his
    eyes the kid was holding his service revolver, had slipped it from its ankle holster and was pointing it at Frank's chest.
    "So, since you went and lied to me, maybe I got a little bit more coming to me than just the twenty, huh?"
    Frank swallowed, his mouth and throat gone suddenly dry, feeling like a goddamn fool, stupid enough to let this punk catch him off guard, his pants around his ankles and his shriveling dick dripping cum into the toilet bowl, the barrel of his own gun aimed straight at his heart.
    "Just give that back to me before someone gets hurt, okay?" Like he really thought there was any chance of that happening.
    The kid shook his head and smiled, used the back of his free hand to wipe his mouth, careful not to take his eyes off Frank.
    "What?" Frank asked him, fear and exasperation fighting for control of his voice. "You think you're actually gonna shake down a policeman with his own fucking gun and get away with it?"
    "Do all the other little piggies know you're a faggot?" the boy said. Frank punched him hard in the face, sent him crashing backward into the locked door of the stall.
    The revolver tumbled from his hand and clattered loudly on the filthy tiles. He grabbed the kid by the collar of his T-shirt, slammed his head hard against the door. The boy slumped into a whimpering heap. Frank moved slowly, reaching for the gun with one hand and pulling up his pants with the other. He shoved the .38 back into its holster before he stood up and kicked the kid once in the stomach, once in the face for good measure.
    "You stupid little shit. If I ever see you again... if I ever so much as fuckin' see you again, motherfucker, they'll be dragging the river for the parts the alligators didn't want. Do you understand me?"
    The kid coughed out a mouthful of blood and Frank Gray kicked him in the guts again.
    "Answer me, fucker."
    The boy managed a choked strangling sound and half a nod. Frank kneeled beside him and stuffed the twenty he'd earned into a back pocket.
    "I'm going back out there, and I'm going to finish my beer. You're going to stay right here for a while." Without waiting for a response, he left the kid curled fetal and moaning beside the toilet.

    Frank takes another drink from his bottle and watches the lazy counterclockwise spiral of the storm tracking across his television screen. The weatherman points to the tattered delta and barrier island coast of Louisiana and says something Frank can't hear because he's turned the sound down all the way. It's better to hear the rain, he thinks, better just to listen to the fucking incomprehensible rain.
    He's always heard stories of hustlers robbing cops, stealing guns and badges when the cop wasn't looking, or trying to blackmail them later on. Fuck that, he thinks drunkenly, remembering the fear and surprise shining like a fever from the kid's eyes. Fuck that to hell and back again. But there's another voice in his head, the voice that tried to stop him from speaking to the boy in the first place. Sometimes the alcohol muffles it to a whisper, but now it's loud and it says, Yeah, it's easy for you to talk that macho crap now, Frank Gray. But you were ready to shit yourself today, weren't you, buddy?
    Frank fumbles for the remote control and turns the volume back up until he can't hear anything above the meteorologist's nasal voice

    The heavy drinking began a couple of months before his promotion to detective, when Frank was still just a beat cop working the Iberville projects east of Canal Street. His partner was a young black woman named Linda Getty, a rookie he'd been working with only a few weeks when they got the call, what he would always remember as the Bad Call. It was a rainy Shrove Tuesday and for Frank that afternoon would mark the moment that his descent began, his piecemeal disintegration to this place of self- loathing and boozy rot.
    "This domestic