AllFreeNovel
Share Us
No cops?“What are you talking about?” I asked, bewildered. “What’s going on?”
“Help me up.”
“John, what happened? Who did it?”
“I don’t…know.” John moaned.
“So then how do you know it’s not the guys following us? How do you know it’s not whoever killed Lemaire? Unlessyoukilled Lemaire.” I tried to collect my thoughts. “John, you have to tell me what’s going on. What are you up to? It stinks to high heaven.”
“Calm down.” John snorted. Fresh red blood bubbled from his left nostril. “You’re giving me…a headache.”
Asshole. “Did you frame me for Lemaire’s murder? If you did, I’ll beat the shit out of you myself.”
“Help me up.” John raised his arm, with effort. “Ow…my ribs.”
“Do they hurt?”
“Yes, I think one’s…broken.”
“Excellent,” I said, wrenching him to a sitting position.
•••
I poured John a Macallan, having gone from wanting to kill him to being grateful he was alive. I’d helped him upstairs and into the shower, and he’d changed into a T-shirt and jeans while I’d cleaned up the kitchen and texted our parents that we’d be back soon. He sat at the kitchen table across from me with wet hair, holding a blue ice pack over his left eye.
I set the whiskey in front of him. “Here.”
“Are you drinking again?”
“No. ‘At the beginning, nothing comes, in the middle, nothing stays, and in the end, nothing goes.’ ”
“Whatever.” John took a sip with difficulty, through a swollen lip.
“Tell me who beat you up. I’m trying to identify one guy, I can show you his picture on a driver’s license—”
“TJ, it was guys I owe money to.”
“What? What guys?”
“Bookies.”
“Bookies?You mean like bookies that you gamble with? They came and beat you up?” I felt like I was talking to anyone but my brother. “What the hell are you saying?”
“What part of ‘I owe money to bookies’ don’t you understand, TJ?”
“Are you kidding me?” I asked, astonished. “You gamble withbookies? You owe them money?”
“You said that already.”
I tried to gather my thoughts. “So you were lying when you said you didn’t know them?”
“No. I don’t know them. I only know who they work for.”
Sweet Jesus. “What is it with lawyers and meaningless distinctions?”
“It’s the truth.” John shrugged.
“For real? You gamblethat much?”
