Donnybrook: A Novel Read Online Free

left, ran from—it was Knox, only younger, and he was a dead ringer for the young man that Purcell had visions of, Jarhead Earl. She lifted the pistol, tasted the metal barrel, and then the wall behind her was salted with brain and scalp. Every muscle in Purcell’s body tightened, then bucked. He knew the female was Jarhead’s mother.
    Sitting up from the hammock, his feet smashed the grass beneath him, he reached for a sweating glass, ice rattled the liquid that was the shade of molasses. He finished the drink. Wanted the thoughts, the visions to rest. But they did not. Jarhead was traveling. It was night. There was trouble around him, Purcell could feel it. Then came the strobes of colored light and the pictures in Purcell’s mind cleared. Where Jarhead was, Purcell didn’t know. But he was getting closer.
    *   *   *
    They stood out by Ned Newton’s ’78 Chevy truck with a crumbling orange bed, two-tone blue-and-white front. Ned didn’t want to bring the cop into his dented sheet-metal house with its damn slanted roof. Dripping AC unit hanging from a window coughing freon into what passed for the living room, where empty baggies with trace amounts of crystal lay scattered about the floor and coffee table.
    Sheriff Whalen stood behind dark aviator glasses, his lips as dry as his fake words. “I’s sorry having to tell you that, Ned. Know you used to run with them two. Was hoping maybe you knew who them two been running with.”
    Ned’s pasty tongue ran over calico teeth. Wiggled them back and forth. Swollen tissue above his eyes made them appear spooned out as he met his reflection in Whalen’s glassed vision.
    “Nah, them two was stray of enlightenment. Was bound to happen sooner or later.”
    Whalen cleared his throat, knowing Ned was a lying, backstabbing piece of shit. Had yet to earn his time in a Coldcrete cell. But it was bound to happen sooner or later. “No one deserves to go out like that. Skin burnt to a crisp. With a bullet in they head.”
    Saturday-evening humidity pushed Ned’s thinning, spider-legged hair from his buttery crown. He asked, “You talk to anyone else?”
    “Poe over at Leavenworth Tavern, where they’s know’d to drink. He ain’t saying shit. Nor is any of the regulars. Why, you seen or spoke with them as of late?”
    Ned’s joints felt as though they were being chiseled. He shook his head, needing something he was out of, a bump of crank to subside this ache from within. He’d be paying Poe a visit, he thought. Told Whalen, “Been six month or better.”
    Whalen nodded. Knew he was being lied to. Changed the subject before he lost his temper. “Still fighting? Or you just training fighters these days?”
    Ned’s face lit up with a five-tooth grin. “Can’t lie, Ross. I still fight from time to time to support myself.”
    Support your habit, Whalen thought.
    Ned had been a backwoods brawler since he could place one foot in front of the other. Story was, the first time his daddy opened the backs of his thighs with a piece of leather for talking back, Ned doubled up on him. Took the belt away, punched his dad till he spit the shade of roses. Broke his jawbone. Mashed his eyes and lips. Was still hitting his father when he was pulled off him by his uncle. Who convinced his brother to take Ned twice a week to a boxing gym some thirty minutes down the river in Portland, Kentucky.
    Whalen waved a hand before turning to leave, said, “You always was a mean son of a bitch. Even with this badge, I’m glad we never crossed.” He thought, I’d like to cuff you. Take you out in a field of tall grass. Put one between your bug eyes. Leave you for the buzzards and opossum to chew.
    Whalen opened the cruiser’s squeaking door, said, “You hear anything, you know where I’m at.”
    *   *   *
    Wet dripped from the parted cartilage of his nose. Blotted and crusted onto flared lips. Ran down his butt-crack chin. Fertilized his crop of curled chest hair. A few teeth stuck