Read And 47 Miles of Rope (Trace 2) for Free Online Page A

your son, if you want to say hello.”
    “Hello, Devlin,” she said without looking at him. Instead, she picked up a coffee spoon and began to examine it for flaws.
    “Actually, Mother, Chico gave you the best table in the house,” Trace said.
    “Way in the back here where you can’t see anything?” she asked.
    “Yes. Way in the back here where no one can see you, either, when you walk out in the middle of the speeches. She was being kind to you. Who wants to listen to insurance speeches? Eat and leave.”
    “God bless Chico,” Trace’s father said.
    “Amen, Sarge,” Trace said.
    “You would say that, Patrick. You like her, for some unknown reason. Did you see our son’s apartment?”
    “It’s her apartment too, Mother,” Trace said.
    “You can tell, with all those terrible striped fabrics and leather all around. A woman’s touch would do wonders for your place, Devlin.”
    “It has exactly the woman’s touch I want, Mother,” Trace said.
    “Hmmmph,” his mother said conclusively. Along-side a plate two places away, she finally found a spoon that passed inspection, and used it to put sugar into her coffee.
    “Are you enjoying your vacation, Mother?” Trace asked. He winked at his father.
    “I wanted to go to Miami. Everybody I know is in Miami. But your father wouldn’t go.”
    “Exactly,” Sarge said. “Because everybody you know is in Miami. If everybody you knew was in Las Vegas, then , by God, I’d go to Miami.”
    “Everybody I know should go to a tavern somewhere. You’d go there ,” she said.
    “Even the purest of us sometimes has to compromise on moral principles,” he said. “You’re right.”
    “Will you two just drink your coffee?” Trace said. “You’re enough to send me back to the bottle.”
    “Hear, hear,” Sarge said. “What are you up to these days, son? Working on anything interesting?”
    “Nothing much. Just kind of scuffing around,” Trace said.
    “I figured you were working on something because you’re wearing your microphone tie clip,” the gray-haired man said.
    “A couple of interviews this morning. An insurance dead end,” Trace said.
    “If you need any kind of help, you should call me,” his father said. “You know I’m going to be here all week and I used to be pretty good.”
    “You wouldn’t take the lieutenant’s examination,” his wife said. “You could have been a lieutenant, but you wouldn’t take the examination.”
    Trace’s father leaned over and whispered in his ear. “And it’ll get me away from this harpie for a while. A day without nickel slots.”
    “What’d you say?” his wife demanded. “What’d you say?”
    “I told Devlin that you’ve already dropped ten dollars on the nickel slots,” Sarge said.
    “If those slot machines would pay off once in a while, I’d be ahead. They never pay off here. Slot machines in Atlantic City pay off, but not her. In Atlantic City, you can win a million dollars.”
    “That’s a lot of nickels,” Sarge said.
    “Play the machines by the front door,” Trace said.
    “What?”
    “Play the slots near the entrance doors to the casinos. They rig those to pay off the most because it helps drag more players into the casino.”
    “Is that true?” his mother asked.
    “Would I lie to you?”
    “Why did you wait until now to tell me? I’m already ten dollars behind. I could have been a winner already. When I played in Paradise Island, I won enough to buy a piece of crystal. A beautiful piece of crystal.”
    “It looked like a glass carrot,” Sarge whispered to Trace.
    “I never win anything in this town,” Trace’s mother was saying. “I don’t know how you can stand to live here.”
    “You forget, Mother, I made my living gambling here for three years. The place has its charms.”
    “Sand and sun,” she said. “What charm?”
    “No ex-wife. No What’s-his-name and the girl.”
    “Must you refer to your children that way? They are your children, you