Botanica Blues Read Online Free

I stop talking. I stop yelling. It’s quiet in the restaurant. Everyone is looking at me, I know it. Yang is staring at me. She puts some money on the table, more than what the food is worth and she grabs me by the arm and pulls me out of the restaurant, gingerly. I let her. I don’t want to be there anymore anyway.
    We get outside and it’s hot and humid. Storm clouds are rumbling on the other side of the river. I can hear them. I wonder what it would be like to get hit by lightening, right there. Yang looks me over, like a patient, like one of her cadavers. “Luis, what’s going on? What’s going on with you?”
    I throw my hands in the air and I pace the block. It’s late so no one is around. Just the people in the noodle shop and a few cars passing by. “I know what’s going on, Angie, I’ve seen it before. I know what they were doing or I’ve got an idea. I saw it when I was in the service.”
    “You...” Yang looks at me like I’m growing a horn out the middle of my head. “What?”
    “I’ve seen it. I know who it is, what they’re doing, what they think they’re doing. It’s not terrorists, not that kind. It’s terror but not the kind that comes from being shot in your bed or blown up when you go out for coffee. That might send you home, might get you off the sidewalks. No, this is real terror. This is the sky trying to take a bite out of your mind. It gets you off the streets and crying in your room, in the dark and it follows you there. You can’t ignore it. You can't forget it. You can’t shoot it. It...” I don’t have any words left. Angie looks afraid. The thunder rumbles.
    “Look...I...I think I got too close on this case,” I manage. I think of Martin. I wonder what he would say if I showed him the books.
    “I think maybe...yeah.” She goes into her pocket and pulls out her wallet. It has flowers on it, pink and black. She pulls out a card and hands it to me. “Look, Luis, you’re a good investigator. We need people like you. Maybe you should...see someone.” I take the card from here. A name is on it. Someone with a Ph.D. A therapist. “You have to help yourself before you can help others.”
    I look at the card long enough so that she thinks I’ll call the guy and I put it in my front pocket. “Okay,” I say. Okay to what, I don’t know. “Okay.” I say it again. I can’t look at her anymore. I feel like an asshole for blowing up like that. Like a fool for telling her so much. And afraid because of what I said and how I know it’s true. I think about the twelve bodies in the room and the hot sand in the Middle East. I think about the sky and its terrible bite.
    “Let me get you a cab,” she says and before I can protest she hails one and stuffs me inside. I lean back in the seat, tired. She waves to me and I nod before I give the cabbie the address, not bothering to buckle my seat belt before he speeds away.
    I don’t go home, not right away. I get to Danny’s botanica right as he’s about to turn the sign. He looks happy to see me. He opens the door, still dressed in white. “I thought you might show up.”
    “You did?” I step inside and smell the familiar aromas. Thunder rumbles behind me and he closes the door, flipping the sign and locking the door for now.
    “Yeah. I saw the news.”
    “Oh.” I feel the smile fall off my face. “Dan, I tried, man, I really did.”
    “I know.” He shrugs, arranging some of the statues on the shelf. “Tied it to Puerto Rican nationalists working with underground terrorist cells.”
    I wince. Why Garrett went with that, I don’t know.
    “The news was crazy about it. You should have seen the guy’s room.” Danny goes behind the counter and opens the fridge, pulling out two sodas. He hands me one and twists his open, the fizz of the carbonation loud in the quiet store. “That guy was into some crazy shit.”
    “I know,” I say. I know. I don’t know if Danny really knows. I know Garrett and Hunt don’t really