A Game of Chance by Jon Osborne

Author:Jon Osborne
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781407071848
Publisher: Random House

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

THERE WEREN’T A whole lot of preliminaries that went along with Jack’s unscheduled reunion with his father. The look on the man’s face was a strange mixture of surprise and listlessness when he saw Jack standing there in the hallway.

‘Hey, son,’ Don Yuntz said, scratching at his threeday-old whiskers while he drained the last of a can of Pabst Blue Ribbon before crumpling the thin aluminium in his hand – his signature move when he was really into his cups. He was wearing only an open white bathrobe and a pair of vintage boxer shorts that looked as though they’d most likely been purchased sometime back in the early 1980s. ‘I take it you heard about your mother?’

Jack nodded. ‘Yep.’

‘Cops tell ya about it?’

‘Mm-hmm,’ Jack lied. ‘Saw it in the paper, too.’

Don Yuntz shook his head in feigned sadness. Certainly a daytime Emmy couldn’t be out of the question for this asshole. ‘Yeah, the cops never bothered coming over here to talk to me about it,’ his father said, still scratching at his whiskers with his nicotine-stained fingers. ‘Guess they don’t know we were ever together, considering the fact we never got married. Saw something about her death on the news earlier today, but I ain’t chasin’ after them. If they want to talk to me, they can find me themselves. I ain’t doin’ their jobs for them. Anyway, it’s a goddamn shame. I always loved that woman. Fucking serial killer. Can you believe that shit? What a fucking way to go, huh?’

Jack’s ears rang as he tried to keep his hands steady. Wasn’t easy. They were shaking with such fear and anticipation that for a moment he was afraid his father might hear the scissors rattling in his back pocket. Then again, Don Yuntz was probably much too drunk to notice. Some things never changed. And thankfully the old bastard didn’t seem to be aware of the specialedition newspaper that had just come out featuring Jack’s first-grade photo on the front. A lucky break. ‘Can I come in?’ Jack asked.

His father stepped aside and swept an arm in front of his waist, letting out a small burp in the process and blowing the unpleasant odour in Jack’s direction. ‘By all means. Mi casa es su casa. Come on in, boy. Make yourself at home.’

Jack wrinkled his nose at the offending smell and entered the apartment. To put it mildly, his father’s new living quarters were a mess. Still, what did you expect when you’d dumped your partner of sixteen years – a woman who’d borne you two children at the great sacrifice and expense of her own body – and had started dating a dim-witted twenty-two-year-old with no brains but plenty of washboard abs and perky tits to make up for it?

A small collection of empty Pabst beer cans – each one crushed in the middle – was piled up high next to an overstuffed recliner featuring a huge rip that belched fluffy white cotton out of the left armrest.

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