Free Heartman: A Missing Girl, A Broken Man, A Race Against Time by M.P. Wright

appeared at my bedroom door, her curvaceous figure leaning on the frame. She wore a tight-fitting scarlet satin dress cut with a deep V in the chest that flatteringly showed off her amply proportioned breasts. Her long jet-black hair was pinned back tight across her head and tied with a red ribbon in a bun. From where I was sitting, she looked too damn good to be playing at night nurse.
    “He awake? How’s he doing?”
    “Boy gonna be just fine, except for the horse cack you gone and smeared all over him,” Vic said.
    “That horse cack gonna save his pretty face and take the sting outta his messed-up hide,” Loretta replied, quick as a whip.
    Loretta gave me a sultry wink before walking over to my bedside. She stood for a moment, looking at me, her heady perfume going head to head against the overwhelming medicinal scent of the fiery jack before dropping a familiar-looking brown envelope in my lap.
    “I found this in your coat pocket. I’m taking your wet clothes back with me to wash. I’ll drop ’em off fo’ you in the morning. You sleep on some more now and take no notice o’ these two fools, you hear me.”
    She picked up her fake-fur coat from the edge of my bed and turned to her husband, jabbing at his foot with the toe of her high heel.
    “Carnell, git your fat ass outta that chair and take me home, you been sat on that ting fo’ hours like you got your butt glued to it!”
    Vic let out a roar of laughter at Loretta’s damning gibe as Carnell sluggishly got up, rubbing the top of his balding head.
    “OK, cherub, you got everyting?” Carnell asked Loretta, barely masking his indolence.
    “Oh yeah, I got everyting I need, including a big lazy-assed fuckin’ excuse fo’ a husband!”
    “Loretta, girl, you got the body and looks of a goddess and the mout’ of a whore, you know that?” Vic was desperately trying to keep his face straight as he spoke.
    “Yeah, is that so? Well, from what I been hearing the only whore been in this pit is the one he been calling out fo’ while he been sleeping all this time.”
    Her words echoed around in my head as I watched her saunter out of my bedroom with Carnell in tow like a medieval serf holding the trailing robes of his magisterial sovereign.
     
    *
     
    I was dead to the world for the rest of Tuesday night and woke the next morning just before eight thirty to the sound of Vic clanking about in my kitchen, where he was cooking eggs and bacon. He had pulled the armchair from out of my lounge and into the bedroom, then slept by my side through the night, using his overcoat as a blanket.
    He’d heard me as I was getting out of bed and stuck his head around the opened door. He looked as rough as I felt.
    “Sit your ass down, man. You know you need to git yourself some decent fuckin’ furniture in this dump. My back feels like I had Carnell’s big ass sitting on it all night.”
    As he spoke, he waved around in his hand a rusty metal spatula, the grease flying off of the end of it, hitting the walls and leaving a series of small oil stains across them.
    “You ain’t got a damn ting a bit o’ use in that kitchen out there. Chipped plates, nasty old cups, knives and forks that are all bent outta shape, and you got fuck all in that fridge o’ yours too. I even had to drag my butt down the street in the snow to buy you fuckin’ breakfast this marnin’.”
    “I’ve been limited on funds lately.” It was all I could manage in reply.
    “Shit, man, that’s seriously limited out there. You need to git your ass down to a soup kitchen an’ git fed, if tings are that bad.”
    “Well, I might not need the soup kitchen fo’ a while. Take a look in there.”
    I grabbed up the brown Manila envelope that Earl Linney had given to me on Monday evening from off of the bed and threw it over towards Vic. It landed at his feet. He bent down, picked it up, opened it and pulled out the folded five-pound notes and began counting them.
    “You got yourself fifty pounds in