Beluga Read Online Free PDF Page B

say it.
    â€œAny reason I shouldn’t write you up?” She glanced at my license. “Mr. Reid?”
    It wasn’t the sort of place where locals got tickets for eighty-two in a fifty-five, so that meant I had to go to the DMV to make myself a local. Until then, I was just some guy from Virginia who got cited for all grades of shit.
    â€œNo, ma’am,” I told her. “Guess I’ve got it coming.”
    â€œRight,” she said and turned and headed back to her cruiser. I watched her all the way. If I was going to get a ticket, that was the least I could do for myself. Then I leaned back against the Ranchero hood and waited while a breeze worked through the soybean field and a bank of clouds closed off the sun.
    â€œT. Raintree,” I told myself and grunted like Desmond would.
    I heard her door slam, her shoes on the cinders. She gave me my license and my registration wrapped in my speeding ticket. She didn’t bother with any warnings and cautions about how I ought to drive.
    â€œYou can pay it at the courthouse in Greenville or mail a check.”
    â€œConvenient.”
    â€œWe aim to please.” She didn’t smile exactly, but something changed in her eyes.
    â€œLooks like rain,” I said and glanced toward the clouds to the west.
    She glanced, too, and told me, “Not really.”
    Then she was on her way back to her cruiser, and I was standing there watching her go.
    *   *   *
    â€œTula,” Kendell said.
    Desmond asked him, “Buddy’s girl?”
    He nodded, looked my way. “How do you know her?”
    I had the ticket in my pocket. I unfolded it and offered it to Kendell. He wiped the biscuit grease off his fingers and looked it over. “Probably ought to slow down.”
    â€œMiddle of no damn where.”
    â€œShe’s kind of a stickler,” Kendell told me.
    Arnette came by with the coffeepot, but Kendell covered up his cup. He sugared and creamed his coffee with the precision of a chemist. He was not the sort of gentleman to tolerate a splash, and there he was calling somebody else a stickler.
    We got together for breakfast a couple of times a week at a place in Indianola that was either called Hank’s or the Chit Chat, depending on how old you were. Hank had passed away in ’78 when the “new” people had taken over, a guy they called Suet and his bride with big hair, but that was three wives and a string of girlfriends ago. Now the place was run by Suet and his various children mostly, but women he’d been involved with would often drop by for a quarrel.
    Suet’s specialty was an omelet with every damn thing in it and biscuits made with just enough flour to keep the lard in place. Kendell always went for the Cream of Wheat. He was disciplined that way. Desmond was partial to the fried bologna, which came for some reason with sausage and bacon. The coffee always tasted like they’d drained it through a tube sock the previous week. But the place was convenient, and we had a regular table where people knew not to sit.
    I let Kendell get his Cream of Wheat ready, butter his biscuit, adjust his flatware, sip his water. When he looked settled, I said to him, “Tell me about her.”
    â€œWhy?”
    I shrugged like I was curious but in an indifferent sort of way, just equipped with an innocent eagerness to know about my neighbors.
    â€œBony,” Desmond volunteered. That was hard talk coming from him. Shawnica was bony, and look what she’d gotten up to.
    â€œChoctaw?” I asked Kendell.
    â€œDaddy was. Mother’s blacker than me. Buddy had a welding shop out by Metcalfe. Went up to Memphis for some kind of operation. Five, six years ago. Didn’t ever come back.”
    â€œAnd her?”
    â€œWhat about her?” Kendell asked me. He spooned Cream of Wheat on half a biscuit and smiled.
    â€œShe’s a pretty girl, all right? It’s not like this