Free The Jealous Kind by James Lee Burke

and arms and soaked my shirt and squeezed it out and put it back on and dried my hands on my pants. I saw Valerie through the back screen. I got to my feet. I didn’t know what to say to Saber.
    â€œI hurt Nichols pretty bad?” I asked him.
    â€œHe won’t want to look in the mirror for a while.”
    â€œWas that his grandmother?”
    â€œI think that’s his mother. I heard she was in the asylum in Wichita Falls.”
    â€œIf they catch you with me, they’ll put you in the can.”
    â€œYou’re telling me to beat it?”
    â€œNo, I’m saying I might not go home.”
    â€œBecause of Nichols?”
    â€œI’m not supposed to bring problems into my house. It’s an unwritten commandment. My father once said if I ever run away, not to come back.”
    â€œYourold man said that?”
    â€œThat’s the way he is sometimes.”
    Valerie opened the screen and stepped outside.
    â€œWant me to leave?” Saber asked. “Just tell me.”
    â€œDo what you want.”
    â€œI’m not stupid.”
    â€œDon’t be that way,” I said.
    He threw his car keys in the air and caught them. “You sure know how to kick a guy in the teeth.”
    He fired up his Chevy and drove down the alley, gunning the engine with the clutch depressed, as though the roar of his mufflers could shut out the injury I had inflicted on him.
    Valerie was holding the door open with her rump. She wore a white dress with black trim and tiny red hearts all over it. “What happened to you?”
    â€œI got into it with Loren Nichols.”
    â€œAre you hurt?”
    â€œNot really.”
    â€œDid Loren attack you?”
    â€œHe thinks I burned his car.”
    â€œThat’s ridiculous. You look awful.”
    â€œIt’s part of my mystique. Is your father home?”
    â€œWhy do you ask?”
    â€œBecause I’m a little embarrassed.”
    â€œOver what?”
    â€œEverything. I busted up Loren Nichols. Where’s your father?”
    â€œWorking in Beaumont. You did what?”
    â€œIf Saber hadn’t stopped me, maybe I would have finished the job. I don’t feel too good about it.”
    I saw the light go out of her eyes. She studied my face and blinked and looked at the alleyway and the dust rising into the sky. “Come in.”
    â€œWhat for? I just wanted to tell you I didn’t burn his car.”
    She pulled me inside and latched the screen. She bolted the inside door and looked through the window at the alley again. I could hear her breathing. “Say all that again.”
    â€œI hit him and then I couldn’t stop. I’venever felt that way before.”
    â€œI’ll talk to him. I know his brother, too. We have to do something and do it now.”
    â€œYou said he wasn’t a hood, just a neighborhood guy.”
    â€œYou can’t come into the Heights and beat up somebody and walk away.”
    â€œThat’s what I just did. He asked for it, too.”
    â€œWhat you did was insane.”
    â€œYou think you know these guys, Valerie, but you don’t. They’re mean to the bone.”
    â€œI grew up here, a Jew in a neighborhood where people like me are called Christ killers. Don’t tell me what they’re like. Sit down.”
    â€œWhat for?”
    â€œYou have a cut in your scalp. I don’t believe you beat up Loren. Or you’re exaggerating about it.”
    â€œTell him that. I feel sick. I hurt Saber’s feelings. Saber says I’m the only family he has.”
    â€œWe’ll call him up. We can go out together. We can play miniature golf.”
    I think in that moment I fell in love with Valerie Epstein all over again, and this time I knew I loved her more than life itself.
    â€œWhy are you smiling?” she asked.
    â€œBecause I can’t stop thinking about you.”
    A wood-bladed fan spun above us, its shadows breaking across her face. Her