No Cry For Help Read Online Free PDF Page A

quick profit and left the unsuspecting owners in the lurch.
    Crow couldn’t see what was going on beyond the blinding bars of light, so he asked.
    “What’s going on?”
    Blue eyes looked Crow up and down. Fleece-lined, red-and-black checkered lumberjack shirt, loose Haines T-shirt, over-washed blue jeans and a ratty pair of dirt brown cowboy boots that had actually done some of the shit-kicking they were designed for. Crow wasn’t as handsome as he had been in his lean-bodied youth. Soft living and a dark period before the girls were born, where liquor made a damn good attempt at curdling his soul, had definitely left its mark.
    Blue eyes curled his lip in disapproval.
    “You live here?”
    “No, but —”
    Blue eyes snorted. “Then it’s none of your damn business, is it?”
    “I have friends on this street,” said Crow. “No need to get nasty.”
    Blue eyes puffed up his chest like a rooster, stepped forward and aggressively sniffed the air.
    “This ain’t band land, chief. You been drinking?”
    Crow immediately took a step back and held his hands up in mock surrender. Racist paleface motherfucker . He shook his head in disgust, but kept his anger in check. No point getting into it. Only one side lost in a clash between redskins and police, and it was never the police.
    So much for being part of the family.
    Crow returned to his truck and opened the door. Before climbing in, he stopped and turned to the dark-skinned constable.
    “Can you at least tell me the number of the house you’re investigating? Just so I don’t have to worry.”
    “Twenty eight oh five,” said the constable before his partner could stop him.
    Blue eyes glared across the gap with his lips curled in a mocking sneer. “That your friend’s house?”
    Keeping his face immobile, Crow shook his head again. He climbed into the truck and made a U-turn. Once he was back on the main drag, he drove an additional three blocks before pulling into the empty parking lot of a small daytime bakery.
    He threw the truck into park and yanked out his cellphone. His palms were sweating as he stabbed number two on the speed dial.
    Wallace’s cellphone went straight to voicemail without ringing, which likely meant it was switched off.
    Crow chewed his lower lip as he scrolled through the phone’s built-in contact list until he found his cousin’s number.
    The phone was answered on the fourth ring.
    “Marvin,” said Crow without preamble, “are you at Wallace’s house? What’s going on?”
    There was a pause. “That you, Crow?”
    “Yeah. I’m outside and saw the roadblock. Some racist dickhead with an asshole for a chin wouldn’t let me through.”
    “You know where Wallace is?” Marvin’s voice was tight as though he was trying to talk without moving his lips.
    Crow could hear him walking through the house, then the opening and closing of a heavy sliding door. The background noise changed. It became more open, airy. Marvin had moved outside, probably to the back yard.
    Crow had helped Wallace build the large deck his cousin was now standing on. Red cedar with a circular stone fireplace at one end for kids’ wiener roasts and the only good thing white men had ever brought to a campfire — S’mores.
    Crow had a bad feeling, so he didn’t hesitate to lie. “I’ve no idea. What’s happening there?”
    Marvin sighed. Heavily. Trying to shift a burden.
    “You would tell me if you knew, right?”
    “Course I would, Marv, we’re family. Now come on, spill. This is my buddy we’re talking about. You’re making me nervous.”
    Marvin sighed again. The burden hadn’t shifted.
    “OK,” he said finally, “but this stays between us.”
    “Course.”
    Another sigh, followed by a long pause. Crow was just about ready to reach through the phone and strangle him. Marvin had always been a cautious one. Straight-laced, bookish, afraid of girls, and always the first one to squeal to the elders when the older kids tried to make the younger