THUGLIT 03 by Terrence McCauley & Ed Kurtz & Rob Brunet & Nathan Pettigrew

Author:Terrence McCauley & Ed Kurtz & Rob Brunet & Nathan Pettigrew [McCauley, Terrence & Kurtz, Ed & Brunet, Rob & Pettigrew, Nathan]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9781481880961
Amazon: 1481880969
Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
Published: 2013-01-03T05:00:00+00:00

*****

I don’t know how many people remember that old song from White Christmas, the one about what you do with a General when he stops being a General, but Gil sure as shit did, because he was singing it most of the way back to our corner of town. It started to drive me nuts the fourth or fifth time in a row, but Jackson was grinning like the cat who caught the canary and even sang along a little his own self. As for Junior and me, we just sat on opposite sides of the back bench seat, looking out our respective windows and trying to avoid eye contact with Duong, who Gil was sitting on, right in front of us. Every so often he’d pinch the old guy’s cheek and raise his voice even louder and higher, but to his credit Duong stayed stock-still and dead silent and just took it.

It was like he was a POW, thirteen years too late.

Whatever kind of drunk we’d managed to get to this point was worn off by then, so Jackson swung through a package store and came out with a couple of fifths, one gin and the other rye, which made the rounds in the van all the way back to Gil’s place. Even Duong got a belt from the gin, whether he wanted it or not, and from the looks of it he didn’t.

I was already buzzing hard when the engine coughed and died and Gil dragged our prisoner out onto the icy sidewalk in front of his row house. It was a two-level job with crumbling shingles on top, just like the four to the left of it and the three to the right. The screen door was full of holes and the cement steps leading up to it were in bad need of repair. Gil, of course, couldn’t float it. Repairs cost money, and even when he was working he was already trudging through the red. The whole damn place was about to cave in all around him, but it was home, sweet home and there wasn’t a thing he could do about it.

Gil unlocked the door and held it open for us after he shoved Duong into his living room. I had another belt from the rye on my way in and shut the door behind me. Someone switched the lamp on and I couldn’t help but notice he’d really let the place go to hell. Gil wasn’t always the tidiest guy you ever knew, but the room was cluttered with empty beer cans and liquor bottles, Chinese takeaway boxes and overfilled ashtrays. There was dirty laundry draped over chairbacks and the faint reek of cat piss in the air, all ammonia-like, which stung my nostrils. Even when Wanda left, Gil hadn’t gotten this bad. I supposed losing his livelihood was the last straw. Only so much a man could take…

Duong backed up against the fireplace and assumed a mean glare. His little chest rose and fell like a guy who knew he was in for some shit, which he was.

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