Free December Boys by Joe Clifford Page B

girl for bad news the moment I met her. Could smell trouble on her from ten feet away.
    The cop flipped me back the wallet. Of course I wasn’t ready to catch it, and I couldn’t see jack shit anyway. The thing bounced off my chest and flopped to the ground. I didn’t flinch, for fear of a steel-toe boot and fractured eye socket. I stood statue still until the light switched off.
    I waited in the darkness as footsteps retreated. Even then, Ididn’t move until the squad car K-turned, taking off down the road, in the other direction.
    * * *
    “What do you think they wanted?” Charlie asked, swiping a chicken wing through the ranch dressing.
    After my run-in with the Longmont cops, I’d driven straight over the mountain—or rather around it—to the Dubliner, shaken up and not wanting to be alone. Sometimes walking into a dark, empty house by yourself is more than you can stand.
    “No idea.” I didn’t feel like going into my meeting with Nicki at the Chop Shop, which would prompt more questions about my wife and life.
    We sat outside on the tiki porch, Charlie enjoying his ice-cold beer in the ice and cold, licking microwaved BBQ sauce off his fingers, savoring flavors like he was dining on grade A, choice cut. I was shivering balls. My stomach muscles ached, throat raw from retching and breathing fire. My attempts to quit smoking had proved as successful as my efforts to play family man. Now back up to over a pack a day, I exhibited no signs of slowing down.
    “So they pull you over. Kick the shit out of you. Then let you go?”
    “Pretty much.” I regretted mentioning the incident to Charlie, but you can’t show up looking like I did without offering some explanation.
    “Weird.”
    I fired another cigarette. I couldn’t be certain that cop had dated Nicki. He sure seemed to have a thing for her. Even if it was one-way,
Fatal Attraction
shit, I wasn’t calling to find out.
    “Maybe you should talk to Turley.”
    “What for?”
    “He’s a cop.”
    “Being a police officer is not like being a member of the fucking moose lodge.”
    “I know but maybe he can reach out. Y’know, vouch for you.”
    “Vouch for what? Being okay to drive through their shit-heel town? Trust me. I’m not going back to Longmont anytime soon.”
    “Why were you out there anyway?”
    “Favor. For a friend.” I left it there. Charlie didn’t press what or for whom.
    After a few minutes, he said, “Isn’t Longmont where your brother stayed sometimes?
    “Yeah. They have a Y over there. Your point?”
    “Chris was always getting in trouble. Maybe they knew about you from one of his screw-jobs.”
    “Possible.” I doubted it. That beat-down felt far more personal.
    “Isn’t that where your brother met that girlfriend of his? What was her name? The one you talked to last year when he went missing? Cat something?”
    “Kitty. Katherine. I don’t know her last name. I’m not sure they were dating. She was a junkie, too. Chris met her there though, yeah. What are you getting at?”
    “I’m not getting at anything. Just trying to have a conversation with my friend who showed up looking like he’d gone twelve rounds with one of the Klitschkos.”
    “Sorry.” I was being a bastard. I still stewed over Jenny and neighbor Stephen, my inability to do a damn thing about it.
    “How are things with Jenny?” Charlie asked, picking my thoughts out of the radio waves. “You able to patch things back up?”
    “Not exactly.”
    Charlie waited for the rest. Clipped answers weren’t going to cut it. I filled him in on my macho bullshit at Lynne’s. How I’d threatened to punch a guy in the head for eating lunch with my wife. Charlie could usually find the silver lining in my storm cloud, fake an attempt that this too shall pass. Not this time.
    “Damn,” was all he said before turning away to sift through the bird bone graveyard.
    “Yeah, I know. I fucked up. You don’t have to remind me. Having my mother-in-law whispering