Read Gin Palace 02 - The Bone Orchard for Free Online

wouldn’t let anything happen to you,” she said then. “I know for a fact that if the Chief came after you, my father wouldn’t sit for it. And neither would that Frank Gannon guy. I’ve heard him tell my father that if the Chief came after you, it’d be a war.”
    “No one would win,” I said quietly.
    “Frank Gannon has something on the Chief, something bad. He said he’d use whatever it is he had to get you out of trouble.”
    “Frank says a lot.”
    “Do you want to live like this, like a criminal in hiding? Is that it?”
    “I’m just trying to keep the pieces in place, Tina. That’s all I want.”
    “What pieces? What are you talking about?”
    “I don’t want your father and Frank Gannon and the Chief of Police cutting each other to pieces because of something I did. I’m doing what I have to do so it doesn’t come to that. It’s really a small price to pay in my book.”
    The fine bones in my hands still ached from the cold, and my skin felt as if it had been drawn tight over them to keep them in place, a glove to keep them collected, to keep them from spilling with a sickening noise to the wood floor.
    I suddenly craved sleep, a solid unbroken day and night beneath my heavy blankets. I wanted to burrow like some hibernating rodent, on a leave of absence from the whole of the world.
    “I can drive you back to Lizzie’s, if you want,” I said.
    Tina shook her head. “It’s too cold for you to go out. I’ll call Eddie.”
    She called him from my rotary phone on the table by my couch. I went to my front windows and looked down on Elm Street. No one was around. The trees, everything, was still. The streetlights were on, gleaming off the newer cars parked along the curb. I could feel the cold coming in through the panes of glass. I looked toward the train station, around the corner and halfway down the block, visible through the trees. It was empty but still well lit. There was a single car parked in the small gravel lot alongside the platform. The next train wasn’t due till dawn.
    After Tina hung up she went into the kitchen. The tea water she had put on was boiling. She poured me a pint glass of green and ginger tea. It was all I had in my cupboards. She brought it out to me, and the heat of the water moved through my hand the instant I gripped the glass.
    When I looked up Tina was putting on her wool pea coat. A baggy wool hat was already on her head. After she buttoned up the coat she pulled mittens from the pockets and held them in her hand. “You should get back to bed.”
    From outside I heard the sound of Eddie’s cab horn. It tooted twice, fast.
    “Tell Eddie to come by tomorrow and I’ll pay him your fare,” I said.
    She nodded and turned to the door. I listened to her move down the hallway, then on the stairs till I couldn’t hear her any longer. I heard the door to Eddie’s cab open and then close. Then it drove off down Elm Street. Not long after that there was nothing to hear at all. I just lay there, relieved that she was gone, too tired to do anything but keep still and listen to nothing.
    I fell asleep and dreamed of violence, then awoke to my telephone ringing. I answered it with my eyes closed. For a few seconds I felt disconnected from the world, a man with no life to which he was attached. The feeling was gone in seconds, much too soon.
    “Yeah.”
    “You okay?” Augie said.
    “What’s going on?”
    “I’m on my way to your place. You up for a ride?”
    “What’s going on?”
    “I don’t know. That’s what I want to find out. Meet me outside. I’ll be there in two minutes.”
    “Augie, what’s going on?”
    “I don’t know. Maybe something, maybe nothing. That’s what we’re going to find out. I’ll see you in a minute.”
    He hung up. I found my tea and drank it down. It was still warm.
    We rode back to the pond at the edge of town and parked along the shoulder of the narrow road. The cab of the truck was warm, but the window glass was still cold