Burn Scars, Eddie Generous [read full novel txt] 📗

Clue on one of the stations that showed lowbrow comedies and porny horror flicks after midnight. Christine’s hair and neck were directly below his nose. She smelled like liquor and sweat and perfume, while the room smelled like smoke and old beer.

“Did people used to say weird stuff like that all the time?” Christine asked.

“Like what?” He knew, but asked anyhow.

“You know, about the scar.”

“Yeah, a little, but most everybody knew then, too. Kids were dicks. I’d even guess Lana or somebody told Moon about me. Maybe not recently, but like, sometime, and it was always in the back of her brain. Collected there and stored for future reference when she needed to be awkward at a bowling alley someday.”

“She’s insane.”

“She’s something.”

“She was telling me about chakras and crystals.”

“Sounds about right,” Rusty said.

Christine sighed then. “I’m not telling you you should or anything, but did you ever wonder what your dad would say if you did visit him?”

“Try not to think about it, mostly. Hell, though, but, well, maybe I should…I don’t know. I’m smart enough to know I don’t always know what’s best, and people keep on telling me…shit, I don’t know.”

“I’d go with you.”

“Yeah?”

“Of course. I’ll go anywhere you want me to. I mean that.” She shuffled back a bit, rubbing her bare cheeks against him as if to really nail down her intent.

“A lot of people think I’ll be in there with him. Enough people, like your dad, think I should be there already.” Rusty exhaled a deep breath. “Might end up there if this plan goes south.”

Christine turned onto her back. “You said Cary would cover for you.”

“Yeah, but who knows, right? It’s not like he’s one of those rich lake guys who can do whatever they want, just throw a lawyer at something.”

“I guess so. Probably you’d get my dad investigating…I used to think it was ‘cause you’re poor; wrong side of the tracks thing that made him hate you how he does.”

“That’s how this started though, right?”

“What?”

He smiled a little. “You wanted to piss off your dad or something.”

“Yeah, okay, a little, but that’s not all and that means nothing now. And that’s not it. He just hates you, plain hates you. I can’t figure it out.”

“Maybe it has something to do with my family. He’s been a cop a long time…but then maybe he’d feel sorry for me. That’s what most people think. They feel sorry because my family died and my dad’s the one who killed them and I’m some dummy.”

“They can think what they want and that’s okay, because I love you anyway,” Christine said and then gasped.

She’d never said it before.

He’d never said it before either.

Rusty didn’t miss a beat though, somehow, when it came to Christine, he managed to say the right thing the first time and on time. “I love you, too.” He kissed her temple.

“I really will go with you, if you want to go.”

“Yeah. I don’t know, but I’ll bring you if I do.”

 12

The McDonald’s bag crinkled as Christine reached inside, her expression was dead and her eyes were vacant and pink. The color of her cheeks was a bit yellow. She was hungover and didn’t plan on going anywhere anytime soon. Rusty had stepped out and picked up the meal before running it back like a good boyfriend.

“You’re my hero,” Christine said around a couple salty fries poking out from between her lips.

Rusty grinned at her. There was something about hungover people that was decidedly silly to the sober onlooker.

“Didn’t you get yourself anything?” she asked.

Rusty shook his head. He ate only toast and drank coffee before heading to work, was not in the mood to fill up on grease in the same way he’d likely be after work. Not that he was in the mood for work either. Certainly not in the mood to team up with Dwayne for a couple hours.

“Isn’t it a little weird, Dwayne getting you to help him, I mean instead of getting two guys in?” Christine said, eyes on the TV and a re-run of an Intimate and Interactive with Macy Gray on MuchMusic.

“I don’t know. Better go, though,” Rusty said and bent to give Christine a peck on the lips. She tasted like dragon breath and fryer grease.

It wasn’t easy to walk quietly thanks to the mood he’d suddenly found himself in. Working on a Sunday just plain sucked. He pushed outside and huffed out a steamy breath. The sky above him seemed to amplify his feelings. Only a few degrees from freezing with slate grey clouds low hanging—much, much cooler than it had been all week.

Nothing would be good about the day aside that it was to be short.

“Fucking Dwayne,” he said and swung open his car door. He lit the engine and blasted the heaters against the foggy windshield. He didn’t have time for all that. He rolled down his window and drove like a dog on a buddies’ adventure.

When he arrived at Logic Appliance, Dwayne was just stepping out the bay door with the keys to one of the store’s three minivans. “Get in,” he said, pointing to the passenger’s side.

“I have to sign the sheet,” Rusty said as he stood in the space between his car and the car door as he cranked up his window.

“No. Off the books. Get in.”

Christine’s words came back to mind, this time with a fresh new tone and whatever held up Rusty’s guts dropped. He felt a sloshing weight press on his sphincter, attacking like the Ottomans at the gates in Vienna—eleventh grade world history with Mrs. Bender.

Dwayne knew something, bad. The jig was up. He knew about the heist and Linda, maybe not every detail, but something had triggered his radar, and without