The Jealous Kind (Holland Family Saga 2)
Page 116
“If you do, you’ll never eat out again. Half the people in the kitchen are winos who sleep at the mission. If the meatballs get spilled, somebody sweeps them up in a dustpan and sprinkles them with shredded cheese. They wipe the tables down at night with the bathroom mop because it takes too long to hand-wipe them. You here for your chaps?”
“Yeah. And I wondered how you’re feeling.”
“About the kid who got stabbed?”
I didn’t reply.
“I saw his picture in the paper,” he said. “To be honest, I cain’t get his face out of my head.”
“Valerie and I are going to play miniature golf tonight. We thought you might want to join us.”
“I don’t know about that.”
“You don’t like miniature golf?”
“It’s not my first choice.”
“I brought you something.”
He looked down at my hand. “A book?”
“It’s called The Song of Roland.”
“What’s it about?”
“Courage and the battle of Roncevaux. My cousin Weldon carried it with him during the war. He had three Purple Hearts and the Bronze and Silver Star.”
He scratched his cheek, his gaze leaving mine. He took the book from my hand. “Thanks. You’re not trying to talk me into going to church or something?”
“I wouldn’t dream of it.”
“Come in back a minute.”
We went into his workshop behind the house. He set his lunch box on the workbench and took Grandfather’s chaps off a wood peg and handed them to me. “I had to rethink some stuff after that kid was killed. I shouldn’t have given you the thirty-two. You don’t need blood on your hands. You wouldn’t be able to handle it.”
“I really appreciate that,” I said.
“Shut up. A couple of friends came by this morning. They said you’re in the wind. Bledsoe, too.”
“In the wind how?”
“Grady Harrelson and Vick Atlas were at Prince’s drive-in with a pair of sluts. They’re buds now. The word is you called up Atlas and told him Harrelson’s friends boosted Atlas’s car. One of my friends knows Atlas pretty good. My friend says Atlas saw you with this broad from Vegas. Atlas says she’s Mob property.”
“She lives in Atlas’s apartment building. I drove her to a pharmacy in the Fifth Ward Sunday morning.”
“She has to go to the middle of colored town to fill a prescription?”
“It’s a little more complicated than that.”
“You’re talking about Mexican skag?”
“Yep.”
“You busted a vessel in your brain or something?”
“I thought I was doing a good deed. She used to be an item with Merton Jenks. He’s dying of cancer or emphysema.”
He tapped at the air with his finger. “That bull, what’s-his-name, Original Sin, he must have stepped on your head.”