Uncivil Seasons Read Online Free PDF Page B

You don’t seem to be paying attention to the fact that you’re getting arrested.”
    Preston said, “What for?” but he was watching Charlene try to go up the stairs while looking back down at us.
    I said, “Are you kidding? Assault with a deadly weapon?”
    “Charlene’s never gonna say that.”
    “Is he kidding? What do you think your wife’s
been
saying?”
    “Forget her. Y’all got eyes. She’s out of her fucking gourd!”
    Charlene yelled from the top of the stairs. “In case you hadn’t noticed, you stupid asshole, you’re
screwed
, Preston! What are you gonna do now, huh? What are your big brothers gonna do for you now, huh? Huh, baby shithead?”
    He jumped. “Just let me go kill her, okay?”
    Cuddy said, “Whoa. Let’s not do that right this minute. Let’s have a talk, you and me, and this gentleman is Lieutenant Savile and that was his camel-hair coat you tore the pocket off of.”
    Preston said, “I’m sorry.”
    I said, “It’s all right.”
    Cuddy said, “Now, listen, Preston, you wouldn’t like to be moving in with brother Furbus for, oh, about a year, would you?”
    Furbus Pope, the eldest brother, and probably twenty years older than Preston, was in the state penitentiary on a larceny charge.
    “Okay, what’s the deal?” he mumbled.
    “Well, first of all, why did you shoot at your wife?”
    “Let me tell you something about Charlene….”
    “In a minute. Second of all, I’d hate to think for your health’s sake, you were going through—” Cuddy glanced over at the floor, “oh, six or seven hundred packs of cigarettes a day while you were sitting around watching all those TV sets.”
    Preston said, “You want one?”
    “And third of all.”
    Preston now slumped down onto the couch and pulled at his hair. The orange dog finally sat up. I’d decided it was dead.
    Cuddy wiggled his fingers. “Third is the matter of a couple of Luster Hudson’s fingers, which I hear rumors you took off him with an ax.”
    “Says who?”
    “Guess.”
    “Luster.”
    “Guess again.”
    “That bitch.” Preston dug his fingernails into the side of his face and started it bleeding.
    “
Now
you can tell me about Charlene.” Cuddy sat down. I stood by the door, where I could watch the stairs. The dog came over, sniffed at Cuddy’s leg, and then wandered back to the kitchen.
    Young Pope had gotten himself so depressed by now, he had to keep taking long breaths while he talked. “Couple of weeks ago I found out Charlene and Luster Hudson had something on.”
    “Couple of weeks ago you found out,” Cuddy said, and looked at the ceiling.
    “Well, it was Graham found them out, and he told me. So, Charlene, she says it’s a lie, but I don’t believe her because she’s on nights at C&W along with Luster and she’s not showing up home. And then Graham saw her and him dancing at the Tucson Lounge. So I said, ‘One of these times, Charlene, you’re gonna open that door and there’ll be a gun in your belly.”’
    “That’s telling her,” Cuddy said.
    “So she said, ‘Don’t think I haven’t hidden your damn gun where no way you’re gonna find it.’ So I said, ‘I don’t need a gun to—’”
    I said, “Let’s skip to the part where you chop off Hudson’s fingers.”
    “It was Luster came at me with the ax.”
    “Any particular reason?”
    “He had it in his pickup.”
    Cuddy said, “I think what Lieutenant Savile means is, what did you
do
to Luster before he looked in his truck to see if he had an ax handy?”
    Preston mumbled something.
    Cuddy took out a package of cheese crackers. “Come again? Seemed like you said, ‘Torched his bike.’”
    “Yeah.”
    “Torched his bike.”
    “I said,
yeah.
I’m looking for Charlene, and I seen his Harley outside the Tucson Lounge and so I look in and I see him and her out on the floor and so I take a rag and stuff it in his tank. And so I torch it.”
    “All right.” Cuddy nibbled tiny bites of the cracker.
    “So he