Low Lords by T. R. Pearson

Author:T. R. Pearson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Barking Mad Press
Published: 2019-02-20T00:00:00+00:00

SWARM UP

1

Awkward doesn’t begin to cover it. Dirk had to stay with us. It wasn’t like he could camp at the Waldorf Astoria and expense it. Carlsbad is old-fashioned about that sort of thing too, which is to say achingly cheap.

Fortunately, Dirk had been schooled in palaver. It’s one of the assessor training segments. They get strategy and hand-to-hand, certified in demolition, and then they tack on a week’s worth of social skills at the academy as well. So it wasn’t like he was naturally adept at human interaction, but he could fake it in that Carlsbad sort of way. A frothy question. A smile. A nod. Another frothy question.

Me and Brody and Leigh Ann all decided to dislike Dirk for Dad’s sake even if Dad had actively discouraged us from it. Dad had been raised by Granddaddy Hoyt to be a gracious host when occasion presented, so he gave Dirk the bedroom with the bath attached (which meant I got to sleep on the futon), and he went out of his way to try to make Dirk feel welcome and at home.

Clarice did quite a lot less. Plainly, she and Dirk had some rocky history between them. For every cordial remark, they’d indulge together in three or four snide asides. They didn’t like each other in that prickly, provocative way that only people who’ve loved each other once can manage. Almost everything Dirk did that first evening was a problem for Clarice.

“Yeah, why don’t you put it there,” Clarice said with a snort once Dirk had entered the apartment and set his duffel on the floor. He picked it back up and carried it around until Dad took it from him.

“Something to drink?” Dad asked. “We’ll be eating in a bit.”

“A pint of gin, right?” Clarice again.

Dirk told Dad, “Water’ll do.”

Clarice muttered and stalked around the apartment, though with me and Brody and Leigh Ann in the way there wasn’t really anywhere much to go.

Dad brought Dirk a glass of water from the kitchen and then told Clarice, “Come here,” and led her down the hall.

They went into their bedroom and shut the door, so we could just hear the noise of them clearing the air but not what they said exactly. We could guess well enough. I’m sure Dirk could as well.

“Tell me about your deep dark,” he said to us.

Dirk fetched one of our maple dinette chairs and perched on it backwards, provided a guy the size of Dirk could ever be said to perch. The chair joints groaned, and I half expected the thing to splinter and collapse.

“It smells,” Brody said.

“Oh?”

“Garbage, sewer,” Leigh Ann enlarged. “There are some people down there too.”

“Like bums?” Dirk asked. He said it with contempt.

“Hard luck types,” I told him. “This is a tough place to make a go.”

“And the CFs.”

“Loads of them,” Leigh Ann said. “Mack and Clarice saw them up to something.”

“Spill,” Dirk told me.

“Looked to be getting used to the light.”

That earned me a snort. Dirk was skeptical. “Listen to you,” he said.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.