Police and Thieves: A Novel Read Online Free PDF Page B

wait a minute.”
    The other woman didn’t get quite as rattled. Her iron-coloredhair was pulled back into a bun under a black scarf, exposing a slice of her tanned, angular face. She wasn’t bothered by the interruption; on the contrary, she seemed to relish it. A fly zipped past her pert nose, darting toward Bobo, and he swatted it. I got the feeling this wasn’t the first time he’d asked her for money, not by a long shot. When she saw me cowering behind him, she sniggered, “Who’s your enforcer, Bobo?”
    “Him? That’s Doojie.”
    She laughed openly at me, exposing her costly dental work in a bitter smile. This got me miffed, and I guess it showed in my eyes. The other people at the bus stop, a couple of schoolkids and a mom with her baby, saw we were heading into an argument, the beginning stages of one, and they moved off. Bobo turned unpleasantly scarlet and took a gulp of air to calm himself down. “Forget Doojie, Colleen. Let’s discuss the debt you owe me.”
    “I don’t owe you nothing.”
    “You do, too.”
    “Bull pucky, I do.”
    Something was wrong and I didn’t know what it was. Colleen lazily roused herself from the bus bench and brushed past Bobo, muttering, “I don’t need this shit.” She deliberately careened into my arm, drinking me in with her wide-open milk-green eyes. Her face was so close to mine, I got a whiff of her deodorant and I saw the pores on her skin. Then I felt her hand touch my leg. “Mind your own business next time,” she said.
    I never saw the knife she plunged into my left thigh, but the pain of it rilled up my spine. Bobo jumped Colleen from behind and wacked her on the wrist with his elbow, a deft move executed with a minimum of fuss, and she dropped the blade. The other woman bent over and picked it up. Colleen shouted something unintelligible at her, then made a dash for the green light at the intersection. Bobo got his shoulder under my arms, anddragged me away from the bus stop, huffing and puffing, and scolding me, “You fucking idiot, I told you it wasn’t worth asking her for it.”

7
    When I was an infant, no more than a year old, I took a drive with my mother and my stepfather, Doojie Sr., in his car, which was a second-hand Hillman sedan. He had a few guns in the trunk, but that was appropriate because it was the Fourth of July. I was in the backseat, staring at the thick, short club of my mother’s ponytail. I don’t know if Doojie Sr. was inebriated or not, but when we got into the center of town, we came across a cop directing traffic. He was standing on the yellow dividing line in the middle of the road, waving at cars.
    There was bad blood between Doojie Sr. and the cop, some brouhaha about my stepfather getting beaten up at the police station when he was drunk. He was a gentle, sensitive man, and he did not take well to injury. So Doojie Sr. deliberately hit the policeman with the front end of the Hillman.
    After this accomplishment, we drove home at top speed. Doojie Sr. told us to get out of the Hillman, and then he parked the car in the garage. He said to my mother, “They’re going to come after me. I want you and Doojie Jr. to keep your damn mouths shut, okay? Now, let’s get over to the neighbors.”
    His ploy was brilliant. When the police came to arrest him, we’d claim we were watching television at the neighbor’s house all afternoon. We’d never even gone to town. The Hillman was in our garage, unused.
    Twenty minutes later, the police showed up at the house and told Doojie Sr. they wanted to talk to him. I was sitting on the couch with my mother. Doojie Sr. was standing in the doorwaywith his friend Jack. The television was blaring out that afternoon’s edition of
Dick Clark’s American Bandstand
. Doojie Sr. looked at his wife and said, “They hate me. Shit, I’d better see what they want.”
    He kicked open the screen door with his foot and went out onto the porch. Two police officers were at the front gate; the