The Broken Places Read Online Free

able to stand it and going right for Bones, jumping up and biting him on the pecker. He knocked the dog away, the dog whimpering and crawling under the couch. The big woman hadn’t said anything, just looked at them both with her piggy eyes and slack jaw.
    “You got a car?” Esau asked.
    The woman kept on staring.
    Bones slapped her on the back of the head. “Listen up.”
    She shook her head. Her mouth was still filled with Toaster Strudel.
    “Who does?”
    “My boyfriend.”
    “Where’s he at?” Esau said.
    “Gas station,” she said. “Went to get us some breakfast.”
    “What the fuck you eatin’?”
    “Just a snack.”
    “Well, sweet Jesus.” Bones grinned. “You done look like you had too much breakfast.”
    He ripped the plate of Toaster Strudel from her lap and grabbed a couple. He broke his in two and tossed half to Esau. Esau didn’t think he’d tasted anything so good in a long while. He asked Bones for another, and they both found a spot on the woman’s sagging flowered couch, listening to the news like they were all part of the same family. The woman didn’t say anything, just held the Chihuahua tight to her fat bosom, eyes shifting from the men to the shabby door hanging half open. The dog started yipping again, and Bones growled back, as the woman held the little dog’s mouth closed and tugged him closer.
    “Bad storm last night,” Esau said.
    The woman didn’t answer, only held the dog so close that it disappeared under her heavy breasts.
    “Another bad front tomorrow,” Esau said.
    “Shh,” Bones said. “Trying to hear this shit.”
    The anchor was blond and had a nice thick body and talked with a big grin about the storms that had passed through the mid-South and a double homicide in West Memphis. They waited until she started talking with the goofy weather guy, who seemed to be getting a hard-on about another front moving in from Texas. Bones looked up from the television, just hearing a car drive up and the motor quit.
    He turned off the television and nodded in the silence to Esau, who stood up and found a place on the wall beside the door. He picked up a ceramic cat statue on a little bookshelf and waited for the door to open wider. A little redneck strutted into the room with a big white sack, grinning like he’d done something special until he spotted the black man on the couch with the woman.
    “Who the hell are you?” he said.
    “Guy who’s gonna take your car out for a ride.”
    “Shit,” said the little man. He reached for something in his red Windbreaker.
    Esau came down hard and quick on the back of the man’s head with the statue, the cat’s head breaking off and the skinny little redneck dropping to the floor. The big woman screamed and the dog jumped from her lap, trying to attack Esau this time, yipping and tearing at the leg of his coveralls, and finally getting distracted by the smell of whatever was in the paper bag. Esau opened it, snatched out a big greasy sausage biscuit, and handed it to Bones. Three more inside.
    “You got some coffee?” Bones asked the woman.
    She shook her head.
    “Well, damn, get off your thick ass and make some.”
    The woman was nervous, and she had trouble standing, her hefty legs a little woozy and weak, but she made her way back to the kitchen and started to fill the pot with water.
    Esau reached into the man’s heavy work coat and found a .357 fully loaded in a side pocket. “Well, hello there.”
    Bones had already stuffed the whole sausage biscuit into his mouth and was chewing as he pulled aside a sad yellowed curtain and looked outside the trailer. “Sweet Jesus.”
    The man on the floor was coming to and rolling onto his hands as Esau walked past and kicked him hard in the head, sending him flying against the wall. He joined Bones at the window and looked out in the trailer court to see a Chevy Chevelle with dual chrome pipes and a slick blue paint job with a narrow white stripe down the hood.
    “Bad taste