Dead Low Winter. T.K. O'Neill

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СКАЧАТЬ And I hate bowling. Truly, I hate bowling. Bowling alleys aren’t so bad, but all Mike and I used to do there was eat greasy food and he was beginning to look like a pregnant seal. Made me think of a seal because of the way Loraine slicked his black hair down and this sound he made that annoyed me. I guess eight-year-old kids do that sort of thing but sometimes I think she put him up to it. It was also pretty tough because I was living in Bay City and he was across the water in Zenith City. It wasn’t that far but I only spent time in Zenith when I was driving cab or working at the porno store and those are no places for a kid.

      It’s important that you know about the divorce because it was, I think, one big reason I got deeper involved with the Cross brothers. After the break-up, things started going downhill for me in a gravity-fueled spiral. Success was failure and failure was success and who could tell the difference?

      Then on one hung-over February afternoon I was sitting in the living room reading the morning paper in the waning light of a bitter day. The Gong Show was on the tube. Chuck Barris was clowning in a floppy hat and giving away trips to Bulgaria. My roommate Mickey was bartending at the High Times. Dishes were stacked up in the kitchen and my room was piled-high with dirty clothes. Worse, all the beer was gone and I was getting thirsty.

      MAN FOUND MURDERED IN BAY CITY MUNICIPAL FOREST

      The headline jumped out at me. It was the lead story of the day and told the sad tale of a Caucasian male found face down in the snow: Shoulder-length light brown hair, five front teeth missing and two large bullet holes in the back of his head. Harvey Dornan. Alleged police informant, it said in black and white right there in front of me. Body partially eaten by wolves was also there.

      Harvey had finally pissed off the wrong people in his short miserable life. Maybe if someone had fixed the kid’s teeth a long time ago, things would’ve turned out different for him. It was only two weeks since I’d seen him running out the back of the Castaway with thugs in pursuit. I didn’t do a thing to help him then—but you never can with guys like that.

      Now all these bad premonitions and free-floating anxieties were swarming inside me like a cloud of locusts. Did I mention before that I get flashes from the future? Mostly bad premonitions like when you feel something horseshit is going to happen and then it does. And the more I dwelled on it the worse it got. But later that night after a few drinks I started feeling better, you know how it is.

      Then things went routinely for a while. Days of high snow banks and nights of low life. I made enough money to get by but not enough to make any progress on my debt. The only lesson learned: time passes quickly when you dread the rising sun.

      TWO

      Cross Is What My True Love Bears

      February faded into March and I hardly knew the difference. Still gray, still cold, still windy. I guess it was getting warmer though because the boats were coming through the locks out East and steaming down our way. Here at the Head of the Lakes we depend on the boats for a lot of things. A high volume of goods moves through the Twin Ports and a lot of locals make their living because of shipping. And it’s one of the first signs of spring, even though there never is much of a spring on this end of the lake. Most years you’re craving it by Valentine’s Day anyway.

      Winter can wear away at you until your innards cry out for relief. The warm weather and sunshine you so dearly crave is cruelly held back, day after dreary day. Your eyes burn from the unrelenting grayness. The weight on your chest and the tightness in your neck are facts of life. It works on your sanity. Bad shit happens in this part of the world come March. Boozers drink more, druggies do more drugs, the well-off head south and the crazies go over the edge.

      So when Sam Cross invited me in on his poker scam I jumped at the chance like a condemned man in a hurry to the gallows. He and his brother wanted me to do my little mechanic number to augment their scheme, Sam said. I figured my big break had finally come. I truly felt the game was going to lead me up the ladder somehow—hanging with the rich and influential and all it entails. The right connections, you know—something was bound to fall my way. And I wasn’t going to jeopardize my future position with high society by cheating. Because, what you need in this world is connections. But sadly, my only connection remained the same after the game as before.

      Sam Cross.

      One of Sam’s bookmaking debtors was paying off his markers in wholesale LSD and I was given the job of turning it into cash. Three bucks for the red pyramids and five for the green. Take a little trip on the cheap. A good ride and you could drink a lot more when you were doing the Sid. Good for the town’s economy, kept the cash registers ringing. I’d sample the wares now and then myself and hit a few bars and usually blow the profits on drinks.

      * * *

      Several days after the big poker game had come and gone, the first sunny spring-like day of the year hit town. And wouldn’t you know it, man, I had to work my other job: clerk at goddamn Wadena Book, the Twin Port’s only dirty bookstore.

      About ten-thirty on a Saturday night and things were pretty slow. I had the glass front door propped open a crack to let in the soft night air. The juices were beginning to flow again and I was feeling pretty good. I leaned back on the rear legs of the hard and uncomfortable chair and sensually fondled a Dunlop red-stitch softball. My eyes flicked restlessly around the brightly lighted room. All the gash and dick and plastic genitalia burned the mucus on my eyeballs and I couldn’t rest my gaze.

      I was rubbing my eyes with my knuckles when Sammy Cross walked in arm and arm with a gorgeous girl, the babe about five-six or seven, medium length auburn hair, a gorgeous slinky bod and dreamy brown eyes. Kind of girl that makes your dick hard, your heart soft and turns your brain to mush—just the way I liked it.

      My mouth must have fallen open or something because now Cross and the girl were both grinning up at me. Then the light bulb went on in my head and I knew it was the girl from the cab and the Castaway and my dreams, this time without the tortoise-shell shades.

      I said, “Sam—what are you doing here? And who’s your friend?”

      And now I was embarrassed by my surroundings.

      Her blue painted eyelids were at half-mast. A cigarette dangled from her long fingers. She looked me over with an appreciative smirk. My heart thumped like a big bass drum. Surely she must remember me, thought I, but she didn’t let on.

      Sam was grinning like a satanic Teddy Bear. “Keith, ” he said, “Let me introduce you to Mary.”

      Always had manners, that guy.

      I said, “Hi,” and a thousand worms wriggled in my gut.

      “Hi,” she said, with a sexy half smile.

      Then she took a walk around the shop, checking out the fuck-and-suck rags in a wave of perfume and tobacco smoke. I couldn’t keep from staring. Her expression remained the unreadable half smile. Crimson nails, a silver and turquoise bracelet on one wrist and no rings. Breasts pushing firmly against a thin black sweater, butt moving sweetly in tight flare jeans. Some funky platform shoes, an oversize Levis jacket and the picture was perfect, like I’d seen in a dream or maybe an album cover.

      “Jesus, Sam,” I said in a whisper. “Where’d you find her?”

      “Right over in your back yard, Keitho my friend. She’s a peeler at the Castaway.”

      “Jesus—she is the one. She was in my cab. You’re dating her then?”

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