Read Dirty in Cashmere for Free Online

events, but not specific amounts of money. An oracle was supposed to predict anything, which I couldn’t do.
    I felt disconnected, as if I were staring through a glass wall at Heller and 2-Time. On their side of the wall was the money they owed me. On my side of the wall I was angry.
    â€œHow much you giving me?”
    â€œA thousand bucks.”
    â€œThat’s low balling.”
    â€œNo, it isn’t. It’s magnanimous.”
    I repressed the impulse to predict 2-Time and Heller’s futures. It would serve them right, me knowing their fates before they did. It’d take their asses down a notch. But all I wanted was my money. The bullet would give me no rest until I got it. I stuck out my hand. “I’ll take what I’m owed.”
    Heller slipped me a rancid manila envelope. I peeked inside. There it was, a thin sheaf of hundreds, old and smelly. The vaccine money stank of death. I crammed the envelope in my jeans, swiveled on my lame leg.
    â€œRicky?”
    I pivoted toward Heller, to see what the fool wanted now. My scalp was tight, like I was on the verge of a prediction. I peered at Heller, and read right through him. If he had something to tell me, he’d better do it quickly.
    â€œWhat do you want?”
    â€œA prediction.”
    â€œYou mean another robbery.”
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œWhat’s in it for me?”
    â€œPlenty of money.”
    â€œYou’re a goddamn liar. There’s been none of that so far.”
    â€œBecause your skills are shoddy. But I’ll give you one last chance to show me you’re a real oracle.”
    My hair sagged, weighed down by the raindrops it had collected earlier in the afternoon. I was hungry and tired. I resented how Heller smiled at me. He reminded me of my dad, the time we went to an Elks Lodge dance, but didn’t have the money to get in. Dad detoured us to a friend’s house, somebody he knew from his first stint in prison. While mom and I waited in the living room, dad disappeared into a bedroom with his friend, got a blow job from him and twenty bucks for the dance. When he came out of the bedroom he had a phony, shit-eating smile, the same kind of smile Heller had.
    I burred at Heller. “I don’t give a fuck what you think.” I spun around and propelled myself toward the door, my mind in a whirl.
    â€œRicky!”
    Rita’s syrupy voice, educated, full of books and college, stopped me cold. I looked at the door. I was five steps away from it. Shit, I thought. I cranked my head ninety degrees to the left and there she was, staring at me with the most vacant blue eyes I’d ever seen. I smelled the perfumed part in her hair. I felt bad for Rita. Marriage with 2-Time had to be a labyrinth.
    â€œWhere you going?”
    I evaluated her question like it had global consequences. Aware that 2-Time and Heller were at the counter listening closely, I squared my shoulders and said with all the dignity I could muster: “I’m getting the hell out of here. Heller and 2-Time are disrespecting my shit.”
    â€œDon’t listen to them.”
    â€œThey’re creeps.”
    â€œThey envy you. You’re a seer. A natural sage.”
    â€œI am? Thank you, baby.”
    â€œWill you work with us again?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œNext time will be better. Please?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œWe’ll give you a bigger cut.”
    â€œNope.”
    â€œYou won’t do it?”
    â€œNo chance, girl. I’m sick and tired of being abused.”
    I made my way to the door. I eased into the street. A vicious wind was raping the rooftops. The rain fell in sheets, lashing the sidewalks. In seconds, I was soaked to the bone.
    Across the road a homeless woman slept on the pavement, tucked against a Safeway supermarket parking lot wall. A pigeon stalked her, inspecting her hair, pecking at it, searching for food. Finding none, the bird flew off.
    In hindsight I