Выбрать главу

Mike could be seen over Jim’s shoulder now. He said, excited, “So you don’t have the kid anymore?”

“Free, white and twenty-one,” she said.

“You’re going to Denver!” he said.

Jim said, “I’m going to get some breakfast down the road. I’ll be back in an hour or so.”

He got dressed quick and left.

They did it their first time right in Mike’s mussed bed. Only once or twice did she think of the kid, and how she’d smothered him in the room. She hadn’t had any trouble finding the river. She had to give it to Roy. The ball-and-chain business. She had liked the kid but he really was a ball and chain.

A few hours later, they left for Denver. That night, they had spare ribs for supper at a roadside place. They drank a lot of wine, or vino, as Jim kept calling it, and Mike as a joke licked some of the rib sauce off her fingers. She was scared about later, when she went to sleep. Maybe she’d have nightmares about the kid. But she snuggled up to Mike real good and after they made love, they lay in the darkness sharing his cigarette and talking about Denver and she ended up not having any dreams at all.

Copyright cont

“Such A Good Writer” Copyright © 2000 by Richard Laymon.

“All These Condemned” Copyright © 2000 by Ed Gorman.

“A Girl Like You” Copyright © 2000 by Ed Gorman.

“The Way It Used To Be” Copyright © 1998 by Ed Gorman. First appeared in 1998 Revolver.

“A New Man” Copyright © 2000 by Ed Gorman.

“Judgment” Copyright © 1993 by Ed Gorman. First appeared in Monsters in Our Midst.

“Ghosts” Copyright © 1997 by Ed Gorman. First appeared in Dark Whispers.

“That Day at Eagle’s Point” Copyright © 1996 by Ed Gorman.

First appeared in Guilty As Charged.

“Such A Good Girl” Copyright © 1999 by Ed Gorman. First appeared in Subterranean Gallery.

“Aftermath” Copyright © 2000 by Ed Gorman.

“Eye of the Beholder” Copyright © 1996 by Ed Gorman. First appeared in The Dwyer Trilogy (CD Publications).

“Angie” Copyright © 1998 by Ed Gorman. First appeared in 999.