Free The Holy Terror by Wayne Allen Sallee Page B

handy. Balance the photo albums under her feet, kick them away, and follow them into the dervish oblivion.
    She was out of it, back to the present. It was that quick with her. Mood swings a manic-depressive would kill for.
    “I’m serious, Michael. I know I couldn’t get my poor hands to wheel me away from the flame!” Would she really try? She held her hand to her breast, as if she had just been offered sex. .
    Surfer had run the aspirator tube through the slit in his throat a dozen times, like the ultimate in flossing. He popped the shunt back into place, keeping his finger over it like it was the trigger on a squirt gun or something equally non-threatening.
    “Sad world.” His mouth a minimalist charcoal sketch. The words less garbled after the aspirator cleaning. “I want to be with you when you go sunnin’, this be keepin’ up.”
    Wilma dismissed it with a wave. “Don’t be silly, Michael, the farthest I go is in front of the Theater, you know that.” She was referring to the recently renovated Chicago Theater. At the northeast corner of State and Lake, it was within sight of the Marclinn.
    “But still.” Michael tried to sound desperate about it.
    “Michael, I sit out there, you can see me around more people going by after work than I could ever meet in my life!” She said she never had to go all the way to the beach, because the waters of Lake Michigan had the same smell as came from out of tile subway grates along Washington Street. Dank, but yet somehow fresh, the year round. She had told this to Karl, an aging biker who had ALS. His reply was the same he gave most anything: Fuckin’ A. That is, right on the money.
    “Michael, you are a gentleman and a scholar.” She drank the last of her morning constitutional. You could read now how Payton had run 16,726 yards in his career. 9.5 miles.
    “Now it’s time for this old gal to get her butt into gear. I told Colin I’d watch the Lotto machine this morning, and I promised Cat that I would help her go through the Sears catalog this afternoon.”
    “I read that cop book you gave me,” he said, to keep her near him just a few heartbeats longer. “The one by that Ed McBain guy.” He pronounced the last name Mac Bain.
    “Oh, which one was it now? I forget, there are so many...”
    “ Tricks it was. With them little people on Hall’ween dressed as boogens an’ haints, robbin’ groceries.”
    Wilma had started to wheel away, but her face brightened and she placed a hand on Surfer’s knee. “You know, my nephew Henry is going to give me a copy of the new one for Christmas. Lullaby , I think it’s called.”
    “That’s a nice title,” Surfer said. “Like that old song, ‘Lullaby and Good night.’ Just be careful, Gramma! I want to read that one, too.” He had tried saying that last part without fingering his shunt. “I said on how I just wants you to be careful!”
    “Hell, Michael. If you aren’t watching over me, then Evan is when he’s all dressed up as that American Dream character!” Wilma slapped him on the hand one last time.
    As an afterthought, she reached over, one hand clutching the afghan to her throat, and kissed Surfer on his stubbly cheek. His complexion being dark chocolate, she couldn’t tell if he was blushing as she wheeled away.
    A few feet away from Surfer stood a pool table, and in the short silence following Wilma Jerrickson’s departure, someone broke and a new game of Stripes and Solids was begun. On the television above the pool table, an advertisement for a new aspirin product played out its pitch. Yuppies worked hard and held their temples briefly to the jingle, “I haven’t got time for the pain... “.

    * * *

    Frank Haid read the article in the Tribune about the murder. His interest waned before the third paragraph. He was never big on reading, or watching the news, for that matter.
    In the candlelit bedroom, the shadows of crucifixes like beckoning fingers across the wall above his Father’s