City of Heretics Read Online Free PDF Page A

refrigerator again, the stove, the sink. The muscles in her jaw clenched and unclenched.
    She cleared her throat and said, “It was that night, when we went to Oxford. We spent the night at that cozy little motel in Holly Springs?”
    He nodded, remembering it pretty well. The condom broke, and they had a few moments of tension before shrugging it off. He remembered her laughing uneasily, saying, well… if I get knocked up, don’t expect me to name the kid after you. I don’t think Chester would dig that so much…
    Two stupid, ruthless, amoral people, him a strong-arm thug for the Old Man, supposedly Chester Paine’s best buddy, and her a fashion-obsessed party girl, too young for him, married to a very dangerous little man who was also too old for her and living it up for all she was worth.
    Jesus Fucking Christ.
    Crowe said, “Chester didn’t mention a kid.”
    “He wouldn’t.”
    “Yeah, I reckon he wouldn’t. Okay. Tom, eh?”
    She nodded. “Thomas Paine. Like… the guy, you know.”
    “Thomas Paine, yeah. Age of Reason .”
    She nodded again. “I’ll tell you the truth, though. That was a complete accident. I didn’t know who the hell Thomas Paine was until later. Don’t tell anyone that.”
    Crowe laughed shortly. She knew perfectly well who Thomas Paine was. Women can be strange sometimes, he thought; why pretend you don’t know something when you do?  Do some women still cling to the idea that men like a stupid broad?  But what did he know, maybe some men do. Dallas Paine was a lot of things, but she wasn’t stupid.
    The thought that she was playing him crossed his mind, but only for a moment. If he’d wanted to, he could demand DNA tests, solid evidence, all that. But no. She wasn’t playing him--- well, she was playing him, but she wasn’t lying.
    He said again, “Okay. What can I do?”
    She said, “You don’t owe me anything, Crowe. I know that you don’t. I… I came here to see you, not because I think you have some responsibility to me. You don’t. I came because I need your help. I do. And I thought, if you knew about Tom, it might… persuade you a little. It might give you a good reason to help me.”
    “What sort of help?”
    She leaned forward in the easy chair. The green tee-shirt tightened against her breasts, and now that he knew she was a mother, he thought he could see it a little—she was a little thicker around the middle, maybe. The breasts were fuller or something. It could have been his imagination. She said, “I want to leave. I want to take Tom and leave Chester and just… get out of Memphis. I want to get far away.”
    “Well, why don’t you, then?”
    “Money. I need money.”
    “So withdraw a few thou from the old joint account and split.”
    She shook her head. “It’s not that easy. Chester is… well, he’s different than he used to be. Like I said, a lot of things have changed these seven years. Things you couldn’t imagine. You know that Marco Vitower is Chester’s new boss?”
    “I remember hearing something about it.”
    “Well… Vitower’s wife was murdered, just a couple of years ago. You know that, yeah?  And after that, Chester started… well, he started keeping me on a short leash. He… he fixed it at the bank so that I couldn’t withdraw any money without his permission. He took Tom out of public school and hired a private tutor. He just went… well, he went kinda weird.”
    “And you think it has something to do with Vitower’s wife getting killed?”
    “Yes. Well, maybe. I don’t know and it doesn’t matter to me. But that’s not even the real reason, Crowe.”
    “What is?”
    She looked at the floor. “The real reason is… please, please don’t laugh at me.”
    “Just spit it out.”
    “I need to get away from this life, Crowe, because I found God.”
    That one stunned him a bit. He couldn’t tell if she was pulling his leg. He said, “You found God.”
    “Yes.”
    “I didn’t know he was missing.”
    “I