Capture Read Online Free PDF Page A

she uses and sprays the room like she is trying to exterminate bugs. Hurries across to the balcony doors, unlocks them and throws them open, allowing in the car fumes and the noise. She takes the magazine and shakes it over the balcony, letting the stalks and pips float down to the sidewalk. The knock again, louder.
    “Hey, chill, man!” she shouts, battling to keep her voice from shaking.
    She rushes to the front door and slides back the bolts and chains, fixing a smile on her face as insincere as a welcome mat as she opens the door to Vernon Saul.
     
     
    As Vernon limps into the apartment, clutching the gift-wrapped box under his arm, he feels the elation leak out of him like a dribble of piss, leaving behind that feeling of emptiness and anger. The way of the fucken world.
    He sniffs the air, catches the sharp tang of the deodorant overlaying the usual brew of stale cooking, woman-flesh and dank underparts, and the sour-sweet child smell. But it is the stench of weed, thick and cloying, that swamps all the others.
    The open balcony doors are another giveaway: the little bitch never unlocks them, no matter how hot the weather, terrified that some fucker will go King Kong and clamber up three floors and make a meal of her and her daughter.
    Vernon turns to Dawn and holds out his hand. “Gimme it.”
    “What?”
    “The shit. Gimme it.”
    Vernon sees a lie coming and he is over to the sofa and he sees the joint floating like a dead fly on the scummy surface of the cold coffee.
    With a wrist-flick he tosses the liquid at Dawn and it catches her full in the face and dribbles down onto her robe, the stub of the joint dangling from the collar.
    She blinks, reaching for a towel lying on the floor. “Jesus, Vernon!”
    Hissing at him, soft-like, so she don’t wake the kid, who squirms and makes little sucky noises.
    “Gimme it.” He holds out his hand again and she dabs at her face as she digs the baggie of weed out from under the cushion on the ratty old sofa.
    He grabs it from her. “Is this the lot?”
    “Ja.”
    “You sure?”
    “I fucken said ja, didn’t I?”
    He looks at her, nods, knows she’s telling the truth. He sets the doll down on the sofa and crosses to the bathroom—tiny and grim, no bath, just a toilet and shower, pantyhose dangling like body parts from the shower head. He empties the weed into the shit-pot and flushes, watches the green stuff get sucked away into the vortex, drops the baggie on the floor and goes back into the room, where Dawn is repairing her make-up.
    She looks at him in the mirror as he comes up behind her and she flinches. “Where you get it?” he asks.
    “Just some guy.” Lipstick like a dog’s cock running round her mouth.
    “Boogie?”
    “No.” Not looking at him, lying bitch. “Dunno his name.”
    “You fucken stupid in your head, or what? You wanna lose her again?” Dawn shakes her curls, twisting the lipstick closed with a little click. “What I tell you when I helped you get her back?”
    Dawn says nothing, retreating from him now, nervous eyes on the child. He follows her, crowding her between the sofa and the TV. “You got fucken ears? What I tell you?”
    “If I use, you get her taken away again.” She looks across at the kid, who makes a mewling noise like a cat and opens its eyes, blinking at them. “Please, Vernon, it’s just some weed, man,” Dawn says, her voice a whisper.
    He eyeballs her for a long time before he speaks. “You disappoint me, Dawnie. This is your last fucken chance, you hearing me?”
    Dawn nods and Vernon sits down on the sofa and lifts the gift-wrapped box, holding it out to the child, who blinks at him stupidly.
    “Here.”
    The child looks at the parcel, then up at her mother.
    “What is it?” Dawn asks.
    “Here, take it,” he says to the child, ignoring Dawn.
    The child grips the box in its little monkey hands and tears off the wrapping paper, revealing the doll with blonde hair.
    The kid’s face lights up like