Filthy Beasts by Kirkland Hamill

Author:Kirkland Hamill
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Avid Reader Press / Simon & Schuster
Published: 2020-07-14T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

I CALLED JOHN THE NEXT morning at his office and asked if I could come speak with him. I didn’t know the details of his business, just that he owned real estate in the middle of downtown Hamilton and made most of his money from rental income. Bermuda had evolved from a tourist economy to an international tax haven in the eighties. Offshore businesses paid exorbitant rents, sometimes to house a shell office that did little but satisfy a corporate residency requirement.

“Kirkland! Come in, mate. This is a nice surprise.” John held out his arm and gestured toward a leather chair on the other side of his desk. “Can I get you anything? Water? Tea?”

“No, I’m fine. Thanks.” I sat down and placed my motorbike helmet next to the chair. John looked down at his feet and shuffled behind the desk, then looked up and toward the receptionist’s office. “Are you sure you don’t need anything? Sandra can run out and get you something to eat. Are you hungry?” He started walking back toward the door on his way to give Sandra my order.

“I ate this morning.” I fixed my eyes on him and waited as he returned to his chair, looking to either side of it before sitting down as if he might have dropped something. He arranged the papers on his desk into small piles and mumbled something about the mess. I sat still, waiting for him to finish. Every nervous gesture of his made me feel calmer. “What can I do for you, mate? Everything okay? Do you need money?”

“No.” I chuckled. “I don’t need money. I came here to talk about my mother.”

“Okay.” His voice lowered and his demeanor changed, the nervous twitches replaced with a still focus. I got the sense that he had shifted into business mode. I understood the tactic an adversary might face in a negotiation with my stepfather: disarm and conquer. “What about your mother, mate?” he asked.

“Do you think she drinks too much?” I asked.

He lifted his hand to his glasses and shifted them off of his nose and then back down, a nervous habit I had noticed before. He cleared his throat. “She tips a few,” he said, “but we all do.”

“I know. I’m just wondering if you’ve noticed that she drinks more than most.”

“That’s a high bar, mate,” he said, laughing.

“Do you know that she pours a scotch and takes it into the car with her wherever she goes?”

“No,” he said.

“She’s going to get killed one day. Or kill somebody else. She shakes now, when she’s driving.”

“I know she takes a little nip every now and then to calm down,” he said, fidgeting in his seat.

I’m not explaining this clearly, I thought to myself. I assumed he drove when they went someplace together, so it was possible he’d never seen her drinking in the car.

“I know she’s been worried about you boys,” he said. “You and Robin seem squared away at school, or at least you were until you took this little break, which is a good thing to do, if you need a break.

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.