Guillotine by Paul Heatley

Author:Paul Heatley
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Down & Out Books

Fifteen

Lou-Lou is off the bed. She’s on the floor. Her fingers are laced behind her head. She does sit-ups. She’s done push-ups already and her chest, shoulders and arms still burn. Her stomach burns now. She pushes through. Fights through the cramp. Grits her teeth. Sweat runs down her face. It’s in her eyes.

She stops. Rests. Catches her breath. There’s a spot on the ceiling that she focuses on. She breathes in deep through her nose, out long through her mouth. Her arms are spread wide on the floor. Heat flushes through her.

The window is directly above. Through the glass she can see the blue skies overhead, the clouds that drift by. She turns away from them, returns to the spot on the ceiling. She laces her fingers behind her head again and resumes.

She stops abruptly. Someone is unlocking her door, opening it. She leaps from the floor to her bed, gets under the blanket.

It’s Gloria. She carries a tray one-handed, and there’s an excited look in her eye. She closes the door behind her as Lou-Lou gets back out from under the blanket. “You didn’t knock,” she says.

“I’m sorry, Louise, but I have news.” She hands the tray over carefully. There is a bowl of soup on it, a couple of thick wedges of buttered bread.

“Oh?” Lou-Lou takes the tray, balances it on her lap, dips a piece of bread.

“The man who betrayed you, the man who killed Leon—”

“Tommy,” Lou-Lou says, chewing.

“Si, Tommy. The hairy man who brings the head here, who takes the money.”

“What about him, Gloria?”

Gloria leans forward. “He is muerte.”

Lou-Lou raises an eyebrow. She won’t shed any tears for the son of a bitch. “How come? I heard he had a coke habit. He overdo it on the blood money?”

Gloria shakes her head. “No. Murdered. Stabbed. But if a man choose to live in such a way, the man can expect to die in such a way, also.”

Lou-Lou frowns, puts the bread down. “Killed?”

“Si.”

“Who by?”

“I don’t know this.”

“What do you know?”

“Your father is upset. The body was left at one of his Barns.”

“Inside?”

“No. Outside. The parking lot. Lots of blood, he says. A real fucking mess, he says.”

“You heard this?”

“I hear them talking, early, while I clean. He and Mr Sparks. Sometimes they forget I am there, forget I can hear them. I am a piece of furniture, they talk so openly.”

“What did they say?”

“Your father thinks he knows who it was. Mr Sparks thinks he knows who it was, also. Your father wants to speak to this man.”

“Did they say his name?”

“No, they did not. Mr Sparks say he will put word out, get in touch with this killer.”

Lou-Lou absorbs this and ignores the soup for a moment. “Someone killed Tommy, dumped his body in the parking lot of one of my dad’s diners.” She’s thinking out loud. Gloria sits at the foot of the bed, watches her eagerly. “If you hear the name of who did it, let me know. Straight away.”

She taps an ear.

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