Free Spree by Max Allan Collins

tired, very bleary-eyed, looking like a truck driver who had just pulled an all-night run and forgot his No-Doz. Even the wispy excuse for a mustache seemed droopy.
    Nolan unlatched the door and swung it open.
    “What the fuck,” he said.
    “Hello to you, too, Nolan,” Jon said, smiling a little. “Is that a gun, or are you just glad to see me?”
    “Just a second,” he said. Nolan leaned over to the nearby doorless doorway to the kitchen and laid the .38 gently on the counter, next to a toaster.
    Back in the front doorway, he said to the kid, “What are you doing here?”
    “Freezing my nuts off on your front landing. Can I come in?”
    “Why not.”
    He helped the kid with his bags.
    “My drawing board and some other stuff’s in the van,” Jon said, as Nolan shut the door behind him. “It can wait till tomorrow.”
    “What is this, kid?”
    “I got kicked out of my apartment. I didn’t have anyplace to go. I was hoping I could chill out here for a few days.”
    “What does ‘chill out’ mean?”
    Jon was all but asleep on his feet. “I want to stay here, awhile, Nolan. Get my act together.”
    “Are you in trouble?”
    “That depends on your definition. Is somebody trying to kill me? Not that I know of; the Comforts are dead, remember? And the cops never got a make on us, that I know of. I have a normal life now. The kind of life where people don’t shoot at you, but your girlfriend walks out and your landlord evicts you and you don’t even have a band to play in anymore and . . .”
    Nolan guided him by the arm to a soft modular chair in the nearby, big, open living room. “You’re dead, aren’t you, kid?”
    “More or less. It’s a pretty long drive, and I had a pretty long day before I started it. Hey, uh, I tried to call; no answer. I figured you were working.”
    Nolan, standing near the chair the kid sat in, shrugged. “I took Sherry to a movie this afternoon,” he said. “I don’t put the answer machine on, on Sundays. It’s my day off.”
    Jon yawned, grinned. “Christ, you’re leading a normal life, too, aren’t you? Your day off. You went to a movie. I can’t picture that. What did you see?”
    “Something with a woman named Street.”
    “Street?”
    “I think that was it. She had a big nose.”
    “Oh, Streep . Was it good?”
    He shrugged. “I don’t know. I slept.”
    “Now that restores my faith in you.”
    “Your girlfriend walked out. Who, Toni?”
    Toni and Nolan had met, briefly, a year ago or so.
    “Yeah,” Jon said. He explained about the big break Toni had gotten, with Prince’s people.
    “That shorty faggy black guy?” Nolan asked.
    “That’s him.”
    “You can sell people anything,” Nolan said, struck by the wonder of it.
    Jon was blinking, trying to stay awake. “You mentioned Sherry. You’re still with Sherry.”
    “Still with Sherry.”
    “I never met her,” Jon said.
    “You have now,” Sherry said; she was standing at the end of the hallway in her short terry robe.
    “Pleased to meet you,” Jon said, eyes momentarily a little wide. Even with her hair messed up, as it was now from their lovemaking, Sherry was a handsome woman.
    Sherry walked over and offered Jon her hand; Jon stood, shook the hand, smiled at her, apologized for barging in.
    “I’m beat,” he said. “I just need to crash somewhere.”
    “There’s a bedroom downstairs,” she said.
    “I know,” Jon said. “Two of them, actually.” He’d roomed there awhile, when Nolan first moved in, before Sherry was called on the scene.
    “I’ve heard a lot about you,” Sherry said, arms folded.
    “I find that hard to believe,” Jon said. “What did Nolan tell you about me? No. Never mind. I need a good night’s sleep before I can deal with that.”
    “I’ll get your bags,” Nolan said.
    “No, no,” Jon said.
    “I’ll get your bags,” he repeated; he had them in his hands, now.
    “No use arguing with Nolan,” Jon told Sherry.
    Jon followed Nolan down the