Little Blue Lies Read Online Free PDF Page A

evening.
    â€œYes,” I say.
    â€œWell, little rich boy, who, then? Who do I work for?”
    I am not rich. Athletes and senators and guys with their own TV churches are rich. Granted, I don’t notice how much a shirt costs until the cashier asks for my card, so I’m not exactly hurting. But rich is a whole other category, I think.
    â€œThe One,” I say, and maybe it’s a mild concussion or the chloroform coming at me from between Ronny’s legs, but fear and pain and weakness are fading—I’m sure temporarily.
    â€œThe One Who Knows. That’s goddamn right, boy.”
    â€œThis is good,” I say. “I always wanted to ask somebody, an insider like yourself. What, exactly, is it, that he knows?”
    â€œHa- hah !” Maxine laughs from somewhere not too far off.
    â€œShut it, Maxine,” Ronny says as he grabs me hard by thecollar in just that way that truly hard, mean, and dangerous people grab.
    I will mock, and have mocked, Ronny’s intelligence. His hygiene, his style, his overall meaninglessness. But no one will ever hear me mock his toughness. He is the real kind of hard, brutal, vicious, and right now I could well do something that will make me smell as bad as him.
    â€œLeave him alone,” Maxie says, and I realize she is in the doorway. I love Maxine.
    â€œGo in the house,” he says, and while he is as serious and poisonous as ever, I am a little thrilled to hear a small something else in there, something that acknowledges Maxine’s something . The fact that she is not afraid of him? The fact that there is something of the vicious in her as well?
    Whatever it is, I love-love it, and her.
    â€œI’ll go in the house when you come with me,” she says.
    He pauses, hangs on to my shirt. He inhales deeply, exhales with purpose, hot and hideous down into my face, and it’s like he can switch to extra noxious when he needs to, and it is as foul as hell indeed.
    Finally he shoves me down, down-er, onto my back. “Watch yourself,” he says, and then snatches the sketch, the portrait my mother did, my gift for Junie to see whenever she does come home so she can see me again and she can laugh at me properly again and we can get right again, for good again.
    â€œHey, hey, don’t scrunch that,”I say as I see him scrunching it in his big ignorant paw.
    He unsurprisingly ignores the command until he gets to the doorway and Maxie snaps “Don’t scrunch it” as he passes.
    She comes down quickly, gives me a hand up, checks me out.
    â€œYou okay?” she says, whispery-tough-sweet. She didn’t see the punch, so probably figures he just shoved me playfully down the stairs or something.
    â€œYeah,” I say, checking myself to see how true that actually is. My balance feels good. Less than perfect. But good.
    â€œOkay. So you can get yourself home all right?”
    â€œYeah,” I say.
    â€œGood,” she snaps. “Then go there and stay there this time.” She gives me a seeing-me-on-my-way slap to the back of the head that on most occasions would be almost fun but right now causes tears to spill down my face as I walk, weak and wobbly, away.
    â€œI’ll call you,” she calls. I raise a hand of acknowledgment as I stagger on.
    I am halfway home when my phone goes off. I stop, because to see the screen I must focus.
    It’s Junie’s number.
    â€œHey,” I say, all excited, all stupid. “Hey-hey.”
    â€œCome back here,” commands the awful growly-bear voice. Then he hangs up.
    I stand in the middle of the sidewalk staring at the screen of my phone, like it’s going to give me advice or something. Maybe he’s going to punch the other side of my head, to balance me out. Maybe he’s going to tell me, finally, where June is. There is no figuring, but there is also no choice. I have to go back.
    Somehow it seems my equilibrium is slightly worse on the