Bad Chili Read Online Free Page A

go. Way things been goin’ at my house, I’m noticin’ not only some bumps, but I got a wart or two on my hand.”
    “It’s the whackin’ off.”
    “Damn. You might be right.”
    “How’s the eyesight?”
    “A little squinty, now that you mention it.”
    “Can I ask you a favor?”
    “You can ask anything you want. I don’t know I’ll do it, but you can ask.”
    “Will you check on Leonard for me? See he’s okay?”
    “Hey, he’s all right. You said yourself, boyfriend problems. I bet him and Raul are back together. They do this stuff all the time. They probably been stretchin’ each other’s assholes, or whatever it is they do, and that’s why he hasn’t been by.”
    “Anyone ever tell you that your ability to understand human relationships is unsurpassed?”
    “Hear it all the time.”
    “Thing with Leonard is, I still don’t think everything is all right. This isn’t just some spat. It’s more than just hurt feelings. Leonard took this breakup hard. And Raul’s got himself a boyfriend.”
    “Uh-oh.”
    “Motorcycle guy, wears a beard and leathers. I don’t know a lot about it. Leonard was trying to tell me when the squirrel got after us. Then, having to stay in here because of the insurance, and him not coming by, we haven’t talked. He really wanted to talk. I mean, he’s seriously frustrated. Other day in the doctor’s office he threatened to kick this little brat kid’s nasty ass.”
    “From what I’ve seen in the cop business, there’s some kids’ nasty asses I’d like to kick.”
    “This wasn’t a juvenile. This was a kid-style kid.”
    “Advantage there is you don’t have to lift your foot so high.”
    “He called the kid a little shit.”
    “My dad called me that a few times. And he was right.”
    “Seriously, Charlie. Will you check?”
    “Yeah. Yeah. All right.”
4
    Second day I was there I didn’t hear from Leonard or Charlie. I lay there and read the Harlequin romance and found it better than I thought. Then I read the western and found it worse than I had hoped, though I liked to pretend those missing four pages would have made it magic.
    Between bouts with the paperbacks and poking at the bad meals, I spent a lot of time lying on my side looking out the window and sniffling with my cold. The window had become more interesting than the television. I learned to identify certain pigeons that roosted on the windowsill, and I named all of them. Original stuff like Tom, Dick, and Harry. Fred and George, Sally Ann, Mildred and Bruce. I called the little piles of shit they left on the ledge Leonard.
    Beyond my window ledge and the pigeons, I could see a lower blacktop roof and a puddle of water that had collected there, probably from a week ago. I liked the way the sun hit it and made a rainbow in the puddle.
    As night fell and the pigeons went away, I could see only the black roof and the moon reflected in the puddle, like an anemic prowler’s face looking up at me from the darkness. And as time passed the moon gave way to a veil of clouds and turned the sky black, and a spring rain began to splatter on the glass.
    About midnight, I closed my eyes and listened to the rain, hoping it would lull me to sleep, but it didn’t. I opened my eyes as someone entered the room. I turned to see in the darkness a young slim woman in white. A nurse. She came over quietly and turned on the light beside the bed.
    “Still awake, huh?”
    “Yeah,” I said.
    I saw now that she was not so young, just slim and pretty, her hair a little too red, her face strong with experience, her lips soft with what we Harlequin romance readers like to call promise. She had legs that would have made the pope abuse himself in the Vatican toilet and maybe not feel too bad about it.
    “I need to take your temp,” she said.
    “I haven’t seen you before.”
    “I come on at ten-thirty. I work the late shift. I been off a few days. My name is Brett. Open your mouth.”
    As she leaned forward to put