Page 18 of A Handsome Devil

Truman cast me a superior look. Like I knew it. I just knew it. “Oh? And what makes him such a fucktard?”

Denmark waved a hand. “Shee! What doesn’t make him an anusbrain? One time Truman swore, something like ‘godammit,’ and this scrotumhead washed his mouth out with Dawn.”

I waved a hand back at my road dog. “Oh, that was exaggerated. He didn’t really—”

But when Denmark got a few swigs of his cold beer, he was on a roll. I had noticed he wasn’t the type who should drink alcohol. “They tortured and starved him! Can’t say as I blame him for wanting revenge.”

Truman raised one eyebrow. “Revenge? What kind of revenge?”

At this Denmark shrugged. “Oh, you know. Maybe mollywhop him with a lock in a sock.”

“And no one at his school ever noticed anything was off?”

Denmark exploded. “He was home schooled, man! I mean, allegedly. Home schooling means those kids sit around playing with their X-box if they lucky enough to have one! They don’t get no schoolin’, am I right, Lessio? People use it as an excuse, a cover to abuse the kids. Fuckin’ chomos. Whoa, is that Rimbaud?” And Denmark leapt to his feet to stride to a small shelf above the stove, a shelf probably for cookbooks.

Gunning watched him with pride. His chest actually swelled. “Wow! You can tell he was never home schooled.”

Since when had this all become about Denmark? Or maybe that was a good thing. Grabbing his bottle to gulp the cooler less acrid beer, I shouted, “Denmark. Tell them how we busted you out of prison.”

Denmark was engrossed in his book, mouthing the words, so I took the helm. “See, he pretended to be sick, so he was malingering in the hospital ward. It was much easier for me to get in and visit him that way, with the parts of a Derringer hidden in a CD player I was giving him. Denmark hid those parts inside his ‘fro, which was much bigger then.”

My road dog finally looked up from his book. “We just gone to a salon to fix ourselves up.”

Truman asked, “So you just waited ‘til no one was watching, put the gun together, and busted on out of there? Nice.”

I said, “Yeah. That’s pretty much it. Except he was running bare-assed with his hospital gown flapping in the breeze like a seagull.”

Everyone laughed at the image, and Truman asked, “So you were waiting somewhere?”

“Yeah, in some middle-of-the-road Honda no one would ever suspect.” Then I realized Truman drove a Honda, so I added, “I ditched it for the Electra Glide out front.”

Gunning just barreled ahead, though. “And you didn’t even have to shoot anyone?”

Denmark would definitely take the credit for that. “Oh, I got a few bodies, all right. I had to take out the driver behind the wheel of a meat wagon so I could drive it on out the gate.”

I had to chuckle. “Too bad the inmates in the back were too sick to make a run for it once outside the gates.”

“Yeah,” said Denmark, jutting his lower jaw. “One of them had gone psych and was destined for the ding wing, and he couldn’t move ‘cause the strait jacket.”

Glad to talk about anything other than Livermore, I added, “Denmark had to beat the other guy. They were tussling to both get into the Honda with me.”

Denmark squished his nose. “That monkey mouth musta had the worst case of the runs.” He demonstrated by turning his butt to face us. “Brown stripes going all the way down the back of his gown and legs.”

“Well,” said Truman. “At least he was genuinely ill.”

I said, “I had to get out of the car and help peel that guy off Denmark.”

My road dog nodded. “That’s why we went to the salon.”

To my chagrin, Truman brought the subject round full circle. “And why you’re going to Livermore to confront that chomo.” Truman knew that Leonard Skinner was a home schooler—in other words, child molester—but did he know the extent of it? How could he? He barely knew me.

“Yes,” I said casually, running an arm along the back of Truman’s chair. “I need to give him a piece of my mind.”

Denmark chose this moment to point at me and yell, “Alessio’s godforsaken hip pain was caused by his motherfucking foster father, and we’re going there to set things right!”

I tried another distraction tactic. “Before we square up.” Meaning get out of “the life.” I was aware I desperately needed Truman to look up to me. I knew he was proud of my progress so far, and maybe that’s why I kept coming back to him. He helped keep me out of “the life.”

But Truman slapped the tabletop. A scintillating omen. Especially when he stood.