Sleight Read Online Free Page B

my direction again and I thought I saw a flicker of recognition in his eyes.
    “Friends.”
    “Yeah, that’s right. Friends. You helped me move in. You brought me a birthday cupcake last year, and we’ve done magic in the parks together. Are you okay?”
    He nodded slightly. “Trick cards. You do the trick cards good, Benny.”
    It was like he was waking up. “Yeah, that’s right, the trick cards. You love the trick cards.”
    He nodded again and slowly began to shuffle after me as I walked toward the sidewalk. His face was soot smudged and his clothes were so dirty that they were all the same grimy shade of grey. He must have been sleeping in the burned out pier. In addition to getting long, his hair had gotten shaggy. The scruffy beard he’d allowed to grow completed his homeless image.
    We grabbed a seat on a metal bench while we waited for his meal. He sat with his chin on his chest, eyes focused on the sidewalk in front of him.
    “Breno, what have you been doing? Why haven’t you been back to your apartment?” I asked.
    He shrugged his shoulders. “I been bad. Mr. Goodturn, he might be mad at me.”
    “Mr. Goodturn’s still pretty sick, and I’m sure that whatever it is that you did he wouldn’t be mad at you. He cares about you.”
    “Do you think that girl made my food yet?” he looked up and stared blearily at the food stand.
    I reached out and put my hand gently on the dirty sleeve of his raggedy jacket. “It’ll be a few more minutes. Breno I want you to come back with me. Mr. Goodturn’s doing better and he asked for you today.”
    He turned his head in my direction and I could see a little of the old Breno in his face. “He did? He wanted me?” he said hopefully. Then his shoulders drooped. “But he dint know what I did.”
    “Breno, what did you do that you’re so worried about?” I asked, fearing the answer.
    “I made a accident. It was a accident,” He said.
    “If it was an accident Mr. G isn’t going to be mad at you. He loves you Breno. We all do.”
    A brunette wearing a blue apron, bounced over to us carrying a paper sack. “I think this is for you.”
    I took the bag from her. “Thanks, you didn’t have to bring it to us.”
    She smirked, her eyes shining in the afternoon sunlight. “Yeah, well, Cassie would have a cow if you, and I mean your friend, came back to the counter.”
    I shook my head. “Well, it was nice of you to bring it over.”
    She spun on her heel and trotted back to the Fish N Chips stand, where her blond co-worker scowled at us.
    Handing the bag to Breno I stood up and said, “Here. Eat up. Let’s go catch a bus.”
    Breno got slowly to his feet as he opened the bag and shoved a big hand into it. He pulled out a large piece of battered fish.
    “You’ll need to finish that before we get on the bus,” I said as we headed down the waterfront toward the bus stop.
    The bus driver looked unhappy about Breno being on the bus and made a show of covering his nose as we walked by him. I found us two seats toward the back, away from any other passengers. I was getting used to the smell, but it was so strong that it made my eyes water.
    Breno had wolfed down the food in a matter of minutes, with several pieces of deep fried batter sticking in his beard, grease dripping from his hands, which he had casually wiped off on his pants.
    “When we get back to your apartment you need to get a shower and I’ll help you clean the place up,” I said.
    Breno just turned his face away and looked out the window.
    “Look Breno, you’re going to have to trust me. Haven’t I always been good to you?” I felt a guilty twinge because there had been that one time when I’d pressed him for information and upset him.
    But he nodded. “Yeah, you treat me good, Benny. That fish was good. I like that fish and chips.”
    The bus swayed and chugged back into the city and began the uphill trek back to the residential neighborhoods. Breno wasn’t in a chatty mood and I had run