Read The Poison Sky for Free Online

Closet.”
    “What’s Jill’s last name?”
    “Annunziata.”
    “Was anything bothering Jimmy in the last few weeks?”
    The boy thought about it for a while, visibly torn between talking and not talking. Jack Liffey made a mental note to find him again when Mom was absent. “I think it was pretty hard to miss that he and Jill were going off on different paths.”
    “What paths were those?”
    He was like a dog out at the end of a taut chain, but still a few inches from the bone. “I’m not sure.”
    The mother stirred again. “You haven’t gone drinking with Jimmy Mardesich, have you?”
    “No.” A tiny thrill of rebellion seemed to seize the boy, wholly against his will. “Drinking isn’t the worst thing in the world, Mother. If Charlie Manson’s family was LDS, you’d probably worry about him poisoning his body with stimulants.”
    She came a step into the small living room, but apparently decided this wasn’t the time for a real showdown. “Stimulants and disobedience may have been the start of all that evil behavior, how do we know? You have to be respectful of your body.”
    “Yes, ma’am.”
    “Does this mean anything to you?” Jack Liffey showed him the paper with the number 88 on it.
    A cloud crossed the boy’s face. He threatened rain but couldn’t let it happen. “Huh-uh.”
    “Who’s Marta?”
    “She’s a friend of Jill’s.”
    “Why do you think Jimmy would have a note to call her or see her?”
    He shrugged his big defensive lineman’s shoulders. “Maybe he was trying to get her to talk to Jill for him.”
    “Do you think Jill would be at the Broom Closet tonight?”
    “Sure, probably. It’s over on Lankersheim. I can show you.”
    “No, sir,” his mother said emphatically. “You have homework to do here, young man.”
    The boy thought about it for a moment before succumbing. Jack Liffey could see that the power arrangements in this family were due for a big change soon. He was amazed the mother couldn’t see it, too, and opt for a small mid-course adjustment before it was too late. Perry Muth looked like a good kid, but you could never tell where an adolescent would spin off the merry-go-round if he was driven to take the leap. Maybe this was the one who’d spin up into city hall tower and start shooting the clerks. He was the nicest boy, the neighbors all said.
    “I want to thank you for talking to me.” He left one of his cards, printed up by Marlena a year earlier in a burst of optimism about his business. Outside Faye was standing on the far side of his car, smoking a skinny pastel cigarette. It gave him a pang. He dreamed now and again that he’d started smoking again, which filled the dream with waves of guilt and humiliation.
    “I didn’t know you smoked.”
    “I gave up years ago, but all this has brought it back.” She grinned. “It’s like meeting up with an old lover for a forbidden fling. What did you learn?”
    “That kids get pissed off if you don’t treat them with respect.”
    “You just now learned that?”
    “Everything gets harder to remember.”
    F AYE directed him east along Magnolia and they passed a small knot of picketers in front of what looked like a warehouse, strutting in and out of the yellow funnels of the streetlights. The signs said things like PORNOGRAPHY EXPLOITS WOMEN and THE BODY IS THE TEMPLE OF YOUR SPIRIT, distant echoes of Perry Muth’s mother. One tall sign carried aloft by a minister pointed the wrong way to read. But Jack Liffey’s eye was drawn to a woman in a flesh-colored body stocking with black lingerie over it. She carried a sign that said FUCK ME—I’M A SLUT. A more matronly woman beside her carried a pink plastic dildo the size of a fire hydrant. He couldn’t quite work out the point of view of the demonstrators, but he did know this area was called Porn Alley, the center of the blue film industry for the whole country.
    “Land sakes,” Faye said as they passed.
    “You can say that