Free Deceived by James Scott Bell Page B

love the way she can shape words.”
    “Shape words?”
    “That’s the art of it. Words make sounds. You can clank ’em or you can turn ’em into music.”
    “I never thought of it that way,” Mac said. “I always used words like a club. To get my way.”
    “And now?”
    He sat back in his chair. “In the interest of full disclosure, as they say, I’m on parole.” He watched carefully to see what her expression would be. She didn’t look shocked. He appreciated that.
    “Want to know what I did time for?” Mac said.
    “If you want to tell me,” Rocky said.
    “Robbery.”
    “And you paid your debt to society?”
    “Not quite,” he said. “Parole is sort of like a waiting period. I have to keep my nose clean and do what my parole officer tells me to do. I can’t get into any trouble.”
    “Have you been in any trouble?”
    “What’s your definition of trouble ?” Mac said.
    “I got lots of definitions of — ”
    The waitress appeared with chips and salsa, a Coke, and a bottle of Corona with a lime wedge sticking out of the top. And a shot glass with tequila.
    Mac watched as Rocky licked the webbing between her thumb and forefinger, then shook a little salt on it. She licked the salt, threw down the shot, then bit into the lime. She chased it with a swig of beer.
    “You’ve done that before,” Mac said.
    “And you?”
    “Tequila and I don’t get along. I was in San Diego once, in a park. I had a full bottle. About sixty seconds later I remember it being half-empty. That’s all I remember. Next day I woke up and I was in Mazatlan.”
    He took a sip of Coke and remembered the other time he had gone on a tequila ride, that one ending up worse. That one ending up with him in prison.
    He didn’t go into that. Instead, he told Rocky the story of meeting Arty at the church. He started to go into Arty’s conversion but saw only a cold expression on her face.
    “I’m sure Arty’s told you all about that,” Mac said.
    “He tried once,” Rocky said. “I stopped him.”
    “How come?”
    She shrugged. “It’s good for him, fine. I don’t need to hear about it.”
    “Don’t be too hard on him. He’s got the can’t help its .”
    “The whats?”
    “Can’t help its ,” Mac said. “Pastor Jon put it that way once. In the Bible, there’s the book of Acts. It tells all about Christians right at the start. It was a Jewish thing at first, and the leaders in Jerusalem didn’t like the story being told.”
    “No?”
    “They took Peter and John in and told ’em, ‘Look, dudes, no more preaching Jesus. Got that?’ But they said, ‘We have to obey God. We can’t help preaching what we’ve seen and heard.’ That’s the can’t help its.”
    Rocky bit a corner off a tortilla chip. “I’ve got a friend who has that, only it’s for a swami.”
    “Swami?”
    “That’s what he calls himself,” she said, then leaned forward and whispered, “only I bet if you look real close, he’s probably a former insurance salesman from Schenectady.”
    Mac laughed. It felt good. He realized he hadn’t laughed in a long time.
    He liked her. Maybe it was the fact that she wasn’t putting up a false front. If you had scars deep enough outside or in, trying to fool people was stupid and useless. Scars made you honest, in a way. Forced truth on you.
    Like the terms of a lifelong parole, he thought.
    7:54 p.m.
    Ted unlocked the door and slipped into his apartment.
    He hated his apartment. It was near gang territory. At night he could hear the thumping of the cars as they played their music. He could hear the screams of drunken people. High people. Every now and then, he heard a gunshot.
    This is your life. This is as good as it’s going to get.
    But then he thought of her. Liz. He pictured her in the apartment with him, telling him how much she appreciated what he had done for her.
    He looked at the old chair with the frayed arms by his sliding glass door and saw her in it. She was dressed casually but