Bad Things Read Online Free PDF

young maestro yet?”
    He laughed, and went back inside.
    It took over six hours, but eventually everything was done. By
    four o’clock I’d replaced the frames on inner and outer doors, and
    fi xed the other damage. Becki had the register back up and running,
    something I was surprised she was capable of doing. Her entire de-
    meanor during the day had been something of an eye opener. I hadn’t
    fi gured her for capable and businesslike. The guys in back had mean-
    while returned the kitchen to its spotless and socked-away state.
    Ted came on an inspection tour, pronounced it good, grabbed
    a couple handfuls of beers, and took them out on deck. We all sat
    together, Ted, Becki, and me with the guys out of the kitchen—and
    Mazy, too, when she wandered in as if fresh out of some fl ower-
    scented fairy realm—and drank slowly in the sun, which wasn’t very
    warm, but still pleasant. Fairly soon Ted got his head around the fact
    that though more than one of the cooks was called Eduardo, none
    was actually called Raul.
    After a while Becki got up and went and fetched some more beers.
    She dispersed them around the crew and then offered one to me. I
    looked at my watch, realized it was coming up on fi ve. I’d been working
    in direct sunlight half the day and my shirt was sticking to my back.
    “I need to get back to my place to change,” I said. “Pretty soon,
    in fact.”
    “I’ll give you a ride,” she said as I stood up.
    26 Michael Marshall
    “This is good of you,” I said as we walked together to her car. She
    didn’t say anything.
    She waited out on deck while I took a shower. As I came out into
    the living room I saw she’d taken a beer from my fridge and was sit-
    ting drinking it, looking out to sea. I sat in the other chair.
    “Going to have to head back soon,” I said.
    She nodded, looking down at her hands. I offered her a cigarette,
    which she took, and we lit up and sat smoking in silence for a mo-
    ment.
    “How much trouble is he in?” I asked eventually.
    She glanced up. The skin around her eyes looked tight. “How did
    you know?”
    “Why steal a battered juicer and leave a computer? The mess in
    the kitchen was overdone, and the cash drawer looked like it was at-
    tacked by a chimp. No one came there last night looking for money.
    So where was it? In the locker room?”
    She nodded.
    “Dope, or powder?”
    “Not dope.”
    “How much?”
    “About ten thousand dollars’ worth.” Her voice was very quiet.
    “ Jesus , Becki. How stupid do you have to be, to stash that much
    cocaine in your father’s restaurant?”
    “I didn’t know it was there, ” she said angrily. “This is Kyle’s fucking thing.”
    “ Kyle? How did he even get that much capital? Please don’t tell me
    you gave it to him.”
    “He got a loan. From . . . some guys he knows.”
    It was all I could do not to laugh. “Oh, smart move. So now he’s
    royally fucked, owing not just the back end of drugs he no longer has to sell, but the money he used to buy them in the fi rst place. Perfect.”
    “That about covers it.” She breathed out heavily, drained the rest
    B A D T H I N G S 27
    of her beer in one swallow. “And if you’re thinking of getting heavy
    about drugs, I don’t need to hear it.”
    “No, drugs are way cool,” I said. “Moral imbeciles making for-
    tunes from fucking up other people’s lives, staying out of sight while
    wannabes like your idiot boyfriend take all the risks.”
    “Better get you back. Going to be a busy night.”
    “Take it I’m going to be on pizzas?”
    She smiled briefl y, crooked and sad, and I realized how much I
    liked her, and also how close she was to seeing her life veer down a
    bad track into the woods. “I’m not sure where he even is right now.”
    We stood together.
    “And you can’t just walk away from this?”
    “I love him,” she said, in the way only twenty-year-olds can.
    She drove me back to the restaurant, letting me out at the top of