Shella Read Online Free PDF

her knees beside the chair. “I’m sorry,” she said.
    “On the TV screen, in the window, it was black and white, showed you taking off your dress and all. Everything but your pants. Inside, you were dancing to some song … ‘Fever,’ I think it was called. You crawled around on the bar, licking up drinks they spilled.”
    “You
did
come!”
    “Yes. You were very good. Dancer, I mean. Much better than the other ones. You move real nice, like a real dancer.”
    There were tears on her face. She took the towel off her head, held it in her hands, twisting it like she was trying to get the water out.
    “What’s the matter?” I asked her.
    She put her head in my lap, her hands behind her back. I felt her teeth on the waistband of the pajamas I was wearing. She pulled the string loose, put her mouth onme. I patted the back of her head, sleek from the water. When I got close, I pulled gently back on her hair but she just sucked harder until I went off in her mouth.

    Friday night, I went back to the poolroom. They gave me a different table this time. Three tables away, a bunch of Chinese guys were playing, but not really, something else was going on. I watched them the way I watch the TV without the sound. Somebody was buying, somebody was selling. I couldn’t tell what.
    The red-haired guy came over to my table. “You want to try that shot again?” he asked me.
    “No.”
    “How come? I’ll give you the same odds.”
    “It won’t go on this table. The short rail’s too stiff.”
    “So we’ll take the table you had before.”
    “I’m here to see Monroe.”
    “Yeah, so what? It’ll only take a minute.”
    “I’m here to see Monroe,” I told him.
    We went through the same door. Monroe was at the table alone this time. I sat down across from him. I could feel the redhead, pushing against a cushion of air just off my left shoulder.
    “What?” Monroe said, looking up at him.
    “This guy has my money. He hustled me with some trick shot last time he was here. I asked him to do it again, same deal. He wouldn’t do it. I should get a chance, get my money back.”
    “How much did you lose?” Monroe asked him.
    “A yard.”
    Monroe took out a roll of bills, peeled off a hundred, tossed it on the table. “Get lost,” he told the redhead.
    “I want it from him,” the redhead said, not moving.
    A crackle in the air, all around me. I could feel watchers, like prison. I didn’t move.
    Monroe leaned forward. “Don’t be stupid,” he said.
    The redhead was so close I could feel the air from his mouth. “I could do it,” he said. “You don’t need some outside shooter, do this job. Way I figure it, it’s a big contract, this guy’s taking my money.”
    “Go over there and sit down,” Monroe said. “I’ll talk to you later.”
    “Hey, come on, Monroe. This guy don’t look tough to me.”
    “Cancer don’t
look
tough either. You’re out of your league. Now, do what I tell you.”
    “Hey, fuck you, Monroe.”
    Monroe looked at me. “You want to fuck this guy up, Ghost? Little favor for me?”
    “No.”
    “You don’t do favors for friends?”
    “I don’t fuck people up.”
    Monroe started to laugh then, a thin, crazy laugh. It sounded like that glass cracking in my hand. Nobody laughed with him.
    “What’s so motherfucking funny?” the redhead said.
    “You don’t get it, do you, kid?”
    The redhead backed away, making a triangle out of me and Monroe with him at the tip.
    “Get up,” he said to me.
    I didn’t turn around, watching Monroe. “What’s the going rate for assholes, Ghost?” he asked me.
    “It’s the same for anyone,” I said.
    He laughed again, more juice in it this time. “Okay,” he said.
    I got up. The redhead was right in my face. He was staring hard. I moved my eyes around his face, getting his picture. His size and shape, the set of his body.
    I sat down again. “Okay,” I told Monroe.

    We went out the back door to a fire escape, climbed metal stairs to