Between Wrecks Read Online Free PDF Page B

on it. This might take some time. Gus says the next closest one-hour picture place is about thirty miles away.”
    â€œHave you got the frames yet?” Brenda asked.
    â€œYes. Yes, I got the frames. I went straight to the Kmart and got the frames. Noir Black, just like you said.”
    After he pressed the hang up button he pushed it down hard so as to turn off the phone altogether. Gus said, “It ain’t called ‘gris gray,’ you idiot. That just means French gray, English gray. It means gray-gray. Just like ‘noir black’ means black-black. French black, English black.”
    Gus lost his reputation. Mal said, “How do you know that?”
    Gus turned around and said, “I should maybe call the law. I’m thinking this guy is in some trouble we don’t need to know about. One thing we need to do is be careful about not blurting out how we got those plants upriver. Last thing we need is for some hammerhead we don’t know to find out about the crop.”
    Mal said, “It’s a good thing Windshield has no memory.”
    They didn’t think about how the camcorder still ran.
    Prison Tat Pat and Windshield returned. Pat said, “That’s all right. I can pull that one out of the water and get it to a mechanic and lease me another one in the meantime.” He sat down and said, “Miller Lite ain’t doing it for me. Do you know how to make a perfect Manhattan? You got you any cherries back there?”
    Windshield said to Prison Tat Pat, “Frankie Perkins once had a girlfriend they called Cherry. I went to his funeral on Sunday, but she didn’t show up there. He asked about her, though.”
    Pat Taft said, “You kind of remind me of Frank Sinatra, my man. One time Frank and all his boys came to Nashville, back when I lived there. Well, let me tell you, they say that Nashville cats know how to party hard, but they ain’t got nothing on the old Brat Pack.” Gus said nothing about the misnomer. “They was wanting to smoke some dope? And I just happened to have some with me? The next thing you know—they got Sammy Davis, Jr. to pop out his glass eye. Then old Frank took some screen and put it in the empty eye socket, you know. Then he pinched a good bowl down there. You had to hold Sammy’s nose clamped and inhale from his mouth. It was the damnedest bong I ever hit in my life. Good old Sammy Davis, Jr.”
    Mal sat up and looked at the Winnebago. He said, “You say your ex wants to know that you can act right in front of people? I haven’t ever studied up on the etiquette books, but maybe you shouldn’t be telling her about smoking the marijuana.” Mal looked at Gus. He gave a look that let Gus know that this was Mal’s way of changing the subject.
    â€œShe was there!” Prison Tat Pat said. “Hell, man, she was there! Well, I take that back. She might’ve been off showing Joey Bishop and Peter Lawford Tootsie’s Orchard at that point, I forget.”
    Gus said, “You full of shit, man. I was going to hold off, but I call bullshit on all this. You ain’t much more than forty years old. Joey Bishop and Peter Lawford were long gone from the Rat Pack by the time you could’ve been old enough.”
    The bar’s telephone rang. Gus stared at Prison Tat Pat. Mal said, “If that’s for me, I’m not here.” It rang another twenty times before stopping. “It was for me.”
    Pat Taft placed his right palm up. He looked back at his camcorder and said to the lens, “Tell them, honey. Tell them it’s true.” He drank his Manhattan—which was really only bourbon and a splash of Cheerwine mixed together—and said, “You some kind of racist? If you’re some kind of racist judging me because I pinched down Sammy Davis, Jr.’s nose and intook weed from his face, then I don’t want anything to do with you. It wasn’t like I was