PIGGS - A Novel with Bonus Screenplay Read Online Free PDF Page B

Gloria's closing number, the theme from Burden of Proof. It had to be one, Jack guessed, maybe even two.   They'd shut the place up, bring in the cleaning crew.   He wouldn't have a chance to get out until four.   Then what?   Cecil would wait for him to show.   He wouldn't let Cat kill him, he'd think of something awful, something worse than that.
    Jack tried to turn around.   Going in was tight enough.   There was no room at all to back out.   When he tried, a nail snagged him in the butt.   He wriggled away as best he could, snaked a hand behind his back.   Found the nail, and something else besides.   A plywood square set in the wall.   Eighteen, twenty inches wide.   It gave a little when he pushed.
    Jack listened.   Nothing but music and cheers, nothing any closer than that.
    Holding his breath, he pushed the square again.   Pushed a little harder, then hit it with his fist.   It moved but didn't give.   He raised one foot and kicked back.   The panel splintered and disappeared.   He could feel cool air, the smell of wet earth.
    Jack pulled his foot back.   The hole didn't make a lot of sense.   He should be up against the outside wall, but the air was too cool for that. He reached in the hole, touched a cement wall. Reaching straight down, there was nothing at all.
    A hole, then, between two walls, leading underground.   It might have been a vent at one time, a shaft of some kind.   Whatever it was, it was there.   It didn't go to Cecil, Grape or the Cat.
    Squeezing in the hole, hanging in the dark, took all the nerve he had.   He'd used it all up, there wasn't any left.   Jack closed his eyes.   Let go and dropped in thin air...

Chapter Nine
     
    I t was only two feet to the ground.   He stopped and took a breath.   To the right was pitch black.   Where he was standing, though, was directly beneath the floor of Piggs.   The floor had been there a while–little spears of light found their way through the cracks, lights of every color, dancing in a million motes of dust.   Sound was hardly muffled at all.   He could hear every note, from the tenor to the bass.   He could hear guys yelling and stomping on the floor.
    If you thought about it, the place was kinda nice.   For the first time since he'd come to Mexican Wells, nobody knew where he was, no one could find him down there.
    That was the thing, working for Cecil R. Dupree.   Even if you had time off, Cecil was always on your ass.   You couldn't get private anywhere.   If he wanted you, he'd have Grape or Cat track you down.   Morning, noon, middle of the night, Cecil didn't care.
    It always seemed to work that way.   No matter what, Jack thought, even if it started off good, it always turned out the same.   Get a job, get a room, try and settle down.   It lasted for a while, then the shit hit the fan and he'd take off again.   Fort Worth and Lubbock, then up to Tulsa, clerking in a halfass store.   He'd borrowed a twenty from the register, not any fifty, like the asshole said, meaning to pay it back.   So he'd taken maybe two hundred more, and hauled out of town.   All you had to do was look at this dude, he wasn't even born over here, you knew he was going to turn you in.
    Bumming over to Denver, keeping out of trouble, staying straight an hour and a half.   Pulling that crap in Ponca City, living real high with what's her name till the money ran out.
    And every time you got somewhere, some place you liked a lot, something went wrong.   Some of the time, it wasn't anyone else; it was something you messed up yourself.
    Jack wondered how that happened.   And how come even if you knew, it happened every fucking time?
     
    I t got pretty easy when his eyes got used to the dark.   He felt his way along the wall, cement block, cool and slightly damp.   His fingers found familiar shapes.   Cabinets or boxes, he couldn't tell which, apparitions in the underground night.
    He knew he was walking downhill, the room getting