Bingo You're Dead by Lou Fletcher

Author:Lou Fletcher [Fletcher, Lou]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780991007318
Publisher: Witt's End Press
Published: 2014-01-13T04:30:00+00:00

TWENTY-THREE

Perry slouched on the couch next to Tippi. He covered his face with his hands; his fingers kneaded his cheeks like raw bread dough. I’d seen alcohol poisoning during my time in Vietnam but had no idea how it was treated. I hoped I wouldn’t have to find out.

This was all beyond my area of expertise. As an engineer, I was used to dealing with numbers, data, and hard facts. I knew what to do with those. Human nature—well, let’s just say there was a reason I went into engineering instead of psychology.

“How are you feeling, Perry? Do you need anything? Water, coffee?”

With his fingers, he moved his head from side to side.

“Are you going to be sick?”

“No.” His voice was thick and low. “I’m okay.”

“Can I ask you a few questions?”

He raised his shoulders for what I took as a “yes.”

I was feeling my way now. I started with the easy stuff. Build a rapport. Think of how the TV cop shows interrogate suspects. Hold on. Suspects? Perry, Joe? Somebody else? My gut was in a struggle with my brain. Perry just didn’t fit my idea of a bad guy. Of course, that’s what they said about Ted Bundy. Get a grip, I warned myself. Despite what Tippi says, this isn’t Law and Order, or a James Patterson novel. Then I thought about Applebee’s so-called accident that wasn’t accidental at all.

Take a deep breath, stick to the facts, you’ll be fine.

The others watched me and waited.

I cleared my throat and forged ahead. “Perry.” I doodled on a scrap of paper in front of me, to buy time. “Applebee told me at Alice’s wake you’d been sober for twenty-some years, right?”

“Yeah, so what? It’s none of your damn business, Hank. Or any of you.” He dropped his hands and glared at his brother, then each of us in turn. “You all think you’re so high and mighty. Treat me like a big joke.”

“I’m—I mean, we—are really sorry, Perry.” I looked around the room as heads nodded in agreement. I tried another approach. “This has been a tough few days and there’s been some weird stuff happening. What with Alice, Applebee’s, um, accident, the storm, and now this scare with Gus. We each handle stress in our own way.”

“Look, I fell off the wagon.” Perry’s voice was low and filled with grief. “Nobody is sorrier than I am about it. Twenty-three years sober, gone.” He covered his face with his hands.

“Where’d you get the booze?” Applebee asked, more fear than anger in his voice.

Perry shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. Nobody poured it down my throat. I drank it all by myself. Me. Nobody else.”

Applebee’s face caved in, tears streamed down his cheeks. “Perry, you’re my brother.”

“Brother, hah!” Perry looked up. “I was never really your brother. Just the foster kid you all took turns teasing, playing the fool. I wish I’d never met any of you.” His body was rigid; he clenched both fists and shook them at Applebee, who shrank even further into his chair.

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