Читать книгу Bieber's Finger - Craig Nybo - Страница 15

Chapter 7

After school, Twana watched television with her ma until Butch came home. She sat on the ratty couch, holding her ma’s skeleton hand. She looked over at her mother in the glow of the TV. Her cheeks looked so hallow. Twana remembered when her mother had taken her to the park to push her on the swings. She remembered when Ma had even invited a few nice men over for dinner sometimes. But those days had gone away as her mother’s habit had turned into the beast that had taken over both of their lives.

Twana thought about the brochure in her sock drawer just up the hall. NEWlives Rehab and Counseling Center, the brochure read in big, red type on its cover, next to a logo that looked like a golden snake crawling up a crucifix.

Twana wanted to help her ma, but help didn’t come cheap. She had looked at the brochure many times with dreamy eyes, but at over $8,000 per day for the residence program, she could never hope to admit her.

Twana brought the lipstick case out from her collar and looked at it in the glow of the television light. Bieber’s finger floated in a bath of formaldehyde. In the severed finger, Twana found hope. Even when she had first found the finger at the concert venue, an idea had formed in her head. She had been working on that idea ever since. Now that idea had begun to shape into a plan. It all rested on Bieber’s finger and on Butch, her deadbeat brother.

As if on cue, Butch came through the front door, carrying a large, brown paper bag. “Hey, Sis,” he said. He placed the bag on the formica kitchen table, reached inside, and brought out a cigar box. He opened it up and pointed at a stash of loose, small bills inside. “Looks like we’re gonna make rent with some to spare this month, no problem.”

Twana rolled her eyes.

“I’ve been down to Second Spin Records. I got you some special issue discs,” Butch said, taking a half dozen discs out the bag. “I got Bieber’s whole collection, plus one from that boy-band of his, they call themselves The Five Fingers. They are all autographed.”

Twana shrugged.

“And look, sis,” Butch said, taking a couple of small boxes out of the bag. He held them up and smiled. “Perfume, for you and the other lady of my life. I got you one called Passion Play; smells real nice. I even had the lady with the lab coat down at the department store put some on my wrist so I could take a sniff.”

When Twana didn’t say anything, Butch lost a little of his enthusiasm. He held up the other box. “And for Ma, I got something real expensive--you know, only the best for Ma. It’s called Freedom Breeze. I thought it might go real nice when she starts inviting her guy friends over again.”

That was all Twana could take. She stood up from the couch and walked into the dining area. Butch recoiled from her as she came at him. She took the bottle of Freedom Breeze from him and waved it in his face. “You think Ma’s got any use for perfume?”

Butch shrugged.

“Look at her,” Twana gestured over her shoulder. Butch looked at the back of his ma’s head. Her hair had started falling out. It hung in greasy strands, clumped and unkempt. “She’s a junkie, Butchie, probably buying her smack from your boss.”

Butch raised a hand defensively. “Hey, I ain’t never dealt no drugs, you know that.”

“I don’t know what you do and don’t do out there. Why is it you gotta come home every few nights with small bills in a cigar box?” Twana said, picking up a handful of singles and crushing them in her fist. “This isn’t real money.”

“It spends like real money,” Butch said, rubbing a hand up through the back of his hair.

“When you come home with this money, it only means that somebody on the other end is hurting, because they lost it to you somehow, Butchie.”

“What can I do? We gotta survive, Sis.”

Twana indicated the dumpy flat by spreading her arms, making sure that Butch took in the entirety of the shoe box in which they lived. “Look around, this ain’t surviving; this is dying real slow.”

“Hey, come on, I’m doing the best I can.”

“And as for dying real slow,” Twana walked to her mother. She rested a hand on one of her bony shoulders and looked back at Butch.

He looked away.

“Look at her!”

Butch’s eyes snapped up.

“Come around here so you can see her real good,” Twana said.

Butch moved sheepishly around the couch so he could see his ma’s face, drawn and haggard. She looked up at him, then let her eyes loll shut.

“She’s gonna die, Butchie, unless we help her somehow.”

Butch shrugged. “What do you want me to do?”

“I’ll tell you what I want you to do,” Twana said. She moved out of the living room down the short hallway to her room. Butch shrugged and followed her. When he entered her room, she was standing at her dresser. She opened the top drawer and took out a sheaf of newspaper articles she had collected. “Sit down.” Twana pointed at her bed.

The bedsprings creaked as Butch sat. Twana tossed the sheaf of newspaper tear-sheets into her brother’s lap. He picked them up and read a few of the headlines. They were all about Orlando DePechio. A scrabble of nervous energy crawled up Butch’s spine as he looked through the papers. “You don’t want to go messing around with this guy. He’s dangerous.”

“He’s your boss isn’t he? He’s the reason you always come home with split knuckles and black eyes isn’t he? What is it he has you do for him, Butchie? Are you one of his hammers?”

“This isn’t your business,” Butch said, putting the tear-sheets down on the bed next to him.

“Pick those back up and read the first three headlines.”

Butch hesitated.

Twana put her hands on her hips and pursed her lips.

Butch picked them up. The first headline read: BIOLOGIST QUESTIONED REGARDING ILLEGAL CLONING. He flipped to the second article; its headline read: SUSPECTED UNDERGROUND CLONING CLINIC BUSTED BUT FOUND EMPTY. He flipped to the third article; its headline read: DEPECHIO THUG SQUEALS ON ORGANIZED CRIME AND CLONING.

Butch looked up at his sister, his eyebrows arched. “I don’t get it; this doesn’t have nothing to do with nothing.”

Twana reached under her collar and drew out the lipstick case. She took it off and dangled it in the air. Butch looked up at the odd pendant and shrugged. She tossed it at him.

Butch caught the pendant and held it up in the light. When he recognized what was in the lipstick case, he gasped and dropped it on the floor. “What in the name of--”

“It’s Bieber’s,” Twana said as she bent down to pick up the lipstick case. “I found it after the explosion.”

“What are you doing with it?” Butch asked. “Dear Lord, my sis has gone psychotic.” Butch crossed himself and pulled his feet up onto the bed.

Twana held the lipstick case in Butch’s face. He cowered away from it as she waved it right in front of his eyes. “It’s time for you to man up, big brother. Our ma’s gonna die if we can’t get her some kind of help. And if you don’t believe it, you’re living with your head shoved in a hole. This is the key, and your boss is the door.”

At that instant, the whole weight of what she was asking sank in. He pushed the lipstick case away and stood up from the bed. “Oh, no, Sis, oh, no. You’re thinking crazy, the kind of crazy that’ll get us all killed.”

“You got no choice,” Twana said.

“You’re wrong; I’ve always got a choice.” Butch crossed the room toward the door.

But just before he left Twana alone, she spoke up. “I got details, Butchie. I know where you go. I know what you do. I know who you beat up and who you collect from. I know names of cops who your boss pays off.”

Butch stopped at the door and let his shoulders slump. “I do it all for you and Ma.”

“You do it all for you, Butchie; at least that’s the way it was in the beginning, the fast cars, the expensive suits. Only I haven’t seen those cars or suits in a long time. It’s about time you recognize that your boss is all about your boss.”

Butch turned slowly and faced his sister. “Whatever you got in mind, you’d best drop it. You’re right about DePechio; he only cares about himself. You go playing in his back yard and he’ll shoot you down like a mongrel pup.”

“All you gotta do is get me in front of him. I’ll do the rest.”

“Sis, you don’t know these people.”

“Butchie, I gotta do this thing. It’s my last idea to help Ma. She’s all I got.”

“You got me.”

“Bless you, Butchie, but some day Ma and I are gonna answer the door and there’s gonna be a cop there. And he’s gonna tell us that he found you in some gutter or floating face up in the canal. You gotta help me with this one thing.”

“Sis--”

“If you don’t, I swear, I’m gonna go to the cops and the newsmen and tell them everything. And I’m gonna make sure DePechio knows that it was your little sis who was the rat.”

“He’ll kill you,” Butch said, spreading his hands expressively.

“Nope, you’ll kill me. He might pull the trigger, but it’ll be you who knows that you didn’t give me my one chance to help Ma.”

Butch paced back and forth across the room. He tried for another half hour to argue with her. But he knew, once Twana made up her mind about something, no matter how crazy that something was, she would never let it go. In the end, he agreed to get her in front of Orlando DePechio. But in the back of his mind, he was certain that neither he nor his sister would live through whatever it was she had in mind.