Free The Revelations of Preston Black (Murder Ballads and Whiskey Book 3) by Jason Jack Miller Page B

still
in hand.

CHAPTER FOUR
     
    At the
end of the hall is the room where you used to live,
    And now
the door’s wide open.
    The
voices coming out make no sense to my ears,
    I think
they just might be echoes.
    “Landlord”
Music and Lyrics by Preston Black and Katy Stefanic
     
    The
knocking went on forever. I heard it first in my dream. I remembered being a
little surprised when the noise continued long after I opened my eyes. Too bad
I couldn’t keep them open.
    “Let me in, man.”
    When I tried to get up I rolled onto a
large wet spot where the rest of my Woodford Reserve had spilled onto the bed.
That I drank Woodford and not Jim Beam somehow made my binge classier, even if
the smell made me sick. “Yeah,” I said, my voice little more than a rumble in
my throat, “…like it’s the fucking smell making me sick.”
    Splinters of dull pain rippled through
my skull when I moved. I could only sit on the edge of the bed. I knew if I
wanted Pauly to stop knocking I had to make it all the way to the door.
“Coming,” I said, but I knew he couldn’t hear.
    I slid into a standing position and
shuffled over as the wall fell toward me. As soon as I turned the handle Pauly
stepped in and ripped the drapes aside and filled the little water glasses with
apple juice he picked up at a gas station. “Drink them,” he said, then went
into the bathroom and ran the hot water.
    I shook my head and tried to say
something to explain what’d happened last night. But the words got caught in my
throat like wet leaves in a storm drain.
    “No, Preston. Get your ass moving and
clean yourself off. C’mon, man. Get your shit together.” He grabbed my wrist
and pulled me up from the edge of the bed. “Take your clothes off.”
    “I’ll take my clothes off, but I ain’t
dancing for you.”
    I started to unbutton my shirt and he
shoved the apple juice at me and said, “You need to hydrate, man. Preston, I’m
not fucking around here. Get your shit together.”
    “I know, Pauly. I know.” My head swam
in the pool of bourbon that continued to slosh even after I’d stopped. I
tripped on my pant leg and stumbled into Pauly. “I’m going to get her back,
man. Watch me. I’ll cut my way through the fucking South if I have to. Just
sitting along the interstate with a gun shooting every motorcycle I see.”
    “You have got to sober the fuck up. I
have shit to tell you and I can’t tell you when you’re like this. So drink the
fucking juice, get in the fucking shower and get that fucking stink off you.
You got all kinds of missed calls and I’m going to take care of those while you
get your shit together.”
    “Tell me first. What you heard.”
    He shook his head.
    “Fucking tell me.”
    “Drink this and I’ll tell you.” He
handed me a glass. “It ain’t the Circuit Riders.”
    Pauly sat down in the chair at the
little desk.
    I took off my shirt and dropped it
onto the floor and he went on.
    “Heard over the radio the Circuit
Riders escaped custody this morning. So they didn’t do it. Boggs spent
yesterday in jail.” He poured himself some juice and sipped while he talked.
“They suspect the guy Katy mentioned—Elijah Clay Hicks. He has this cult over
where Alabama and Georgia meet Tennessee. Like she said, this guy had been
preaching since he was two or three. There’s videos of him on YouTube shouting
into the microphone, faith healing and all that. He’s the leader of the group.
All the protestors at the shows were with him.”
    “You think he did it?”
    “That’s who the cops are looking at
according to the chatter I heard over the radio. But if the cops get a warrant
and show up they’re never going to find anything. I guess this group’s property
holdings are pretty extensive. They’re like gypsies. They have all these camps
and stuff. Old farms. People let them live on their property. Going to take a
miracle to find her. Hicks got word out that you’re a false prophet because you
claim to have freed