The Devil Dances Read Online Free PDF

front of me kept revving his motor like he wished he was on the Pocono Raceway forty miles to the east of us. I recognized the driver as Bradley King, Blackwater’s own beer-guzzling, shit-talking resident redneck extraordinaire. He owned the biggest construction company in Blackwater and just figured he owned the town along with it.
    After he revved his truck for the fifth time, deliberately squashed a baby squirrel racing across the road, and tossed an empty can of Red Bull out the window, I’d had enough. I narrowed my eyes and gave his monster truck a little
push
. Immediately, steam started to pour out of the radiator as the beast overheated and died in the middle of the road. Bradley swore violently over the country western music pouring from his speakers and open windows, and I swerved the Dodge around his now dead-in-the-water truck just in time to catch his put-upon expression.
    “Having car trouble, Brad?” I said as I slowed and came abreast of him.
    He flipped me off and banged his fist against his steering wheel at the same time. It was impressive; I wasn’t aware he could do two things at once. “Fuck you, Englebrecht. Go suck my cock.”
    “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
    “Faggot!”
    “Have a great day, Brad.” I hit the gas.
    I reached Mary Jo’s house five minutes later. It was in a secluded cul de sac at the end of the lane, a grand dame of a house that had remained eerily untouched by both that long ago fire and by time, it seemed. It was a huge, white colonial with fine, black wooden shutters, window boxes full of summer petunias, and an honest-to-god wartime swing hanging from the front porch. It had a birdfeeder out front, wind chimes in the weeping willow that dominated the front yard, and tucked just behind the building were the usual bouncy house, trampoline, and swings for when Mary Jo’s grandchildren visited, as well as a vast garden of dwarf fruit trees, organic vegetables, and various flowers, including orchids. Mary Jo’s big passion in life was her garden.
    It was the height of summer, and I knew Mary Jo wouldn’t be inside, so I didn’t bother going up the rosebush-lined stone path to the front door. I went around back, past the giant, flowering rhododendron bushes and Virgin Mary garden statue, and, sure enough, spotted Mary Jo in a good-size summer tent where she was carefully clipping and doctoring her various exotic orchids.
    Mary Jo was a svelte, well-preserved, Southern-born lady in her early seventies. Today, she wore a richly detailed lilac summer dress, complete with a flowered hat and white gloves. She was trimming a white orchid with a pair of delicate rose clippers while one of her boys stood nearby, holding a silver try with a number of pruning implements on it. Her boy was Hispanic, bare-chested and baked to a chestnut color by one of the more talented local tanning salons, his dark hair cut just so (obviously not done at Barber Freddie’s, where I got my cuts), and his eyes were divinely big and dark—worldly, but with a hint of sadness. I estimated his age around sixteen.
    “Nicky, as I live and breathe! It’s been ages since you visited old Mary Jo!” she cried jovially, showing me a set of gleaming veneer teeth that looked too perfect to be anything real. “How are you, child?” She extended her hand in the Southern way—not out to be shaken, but cocked downward slightly at the wrist to be delicately kissed by a greeting gentleman.
    I put my hands in the pockets of my old Dick Tracy coat and didn’t touch the bitch. Tell others I’m not a gentleman. I don’t really care. I’d rather kiss a snake. I tried on a smile that threatened to pop off my face. “You look busy this morning.”
    “I am! What you see here are my latest batch of hybrid orchids. Nicky, can you imagine? I’m creating whole new strains by cross-pollination.” She examined an orchid bud carefully before deeming to cut it loose. “It’s quite a difficult process, you