Sweet Paradise by Gene Desrochers (most read books in the world of all time .txt) 📕

century. Everything was so busy it made me feel like I should remove my shoes and sit with my legs sideways on the flowered couch. I rapped on the coffee table.

“Yes, it’s real marble, straight from England. Nineteen-twenty,” said a Caucasian man with slicked back hair and a mustache. He wore natural-colored linen pants, a matching shirt and sandals.

“Herbie, you are such a bore,” said a woman.

Feeling naked without Junior to explain my presence, I bolted off the sofa. I waved and grinned like I’d just entered a ballroom clad in boxers and a tank top, which wasn’t that far from the truth.

“Hi, I’m Boise.” I coughed, then stammered on, “I’m, uh, here with Junior.”

The man she’d called Herbie looked at me suspiciously. “I’m gonna call security. I don’t know how you got into this house, but ... ”

Junior returned. “Hey, Papa,” he said dourly.

“Junior! What the hell are you doing here?”

The woman smiled and took a sip from her wine glass, “Yes, Junior, your father did not tell me you were coming down today.” She threw an icy stare at Herbie, then the ice melted as she turned back to Junior. “Give your auntie a kiss, dear.”

Junior obliged, pecking the woman on both cheeks. She did not hug him and her kisses were the air-type.

“Nice to see you, Aunt Hill.”

“My, I think you’ve gotten taller since last I saw you. What is that you’re wearing?” She glanced down and put her hand over her mouth. “Is that blood on your leg? Are you hurt, boy? Wilma!”

It was the same spot as the original blood he’d wiped off, but there was now a small cut from his continuous rubbing.

A woman scurried in from the back of the house, wearing a navy smock and rather tight jeans. “Yeah, Miss Hillary. I right here. What you need?”

“Wilma, call Doctor Schneider. Junior’s hurt!”

She leaned over, her pink finger shaking above the cut like an angry insect.

“No, Wilma, don’t worry, I just scratched it too hard. I’m fine. Don’t call the doctor.”

Wilma planted her hands on her hips. “Junior, when you get here? Come give me a hug, boy!”

Junior and Wilma hugged warmly, a marked contrast to the greetings offered by his aunt and father.

Herbie piped up. “See, there it is, Hill, overreacting again to nothing. That’s what you’ve taught my son with all your hysterical outbursts. And you wonder why he has trouble letting go of this fanatical concern for mama. Is that why you’re here, son?” Herbie’s jaw clenched and unclenched, as if he strained to control the need to use the restroom.

My knee ached, so I settled back onto the hard couch. Another man entered from the garden. The smell of marijuana and sage wafted in with him.

“You reek! Get out this instant.” Hillary pointed to the back door from whence he’d entered. “You know there’s no smoking in the house.”

The man choked out a hoarse reply, “I’m not smoking. I already smoked, bitch.”

He stalked around her, punched Junior in the shoulder with a cocked grin and a wink, then plodded up the carpeted steps in black and white Chuck Taylors. A door slammed.

“That’s Uncle Harold,” Junior whispered as he returned to my side and Wilma headed back to the kitchen.

“You see what it’s come to,” Hillary said, sticking her chin up at the second floor. “He thinks he can do whatever he wants when she’s not in residence! I could wring her neck for leaving again with no warning and not taking her lapdog with her. Gurr!”

She pronounced gurr as a word, not as a sound. This woman struck me as one of the most contrived people I’d met in some time. Even in Los Angeles, at the law firm where I worked, she would have kept pace.

“You see why I don’t feel confident we’ll convince them?”

“Convince us of what, Junior?” said his father.

Hillary gazed at her nephew then danced into the kitchen, returning with a fresh glass of white wine in one hand and a bottle in the other.

“Wine anyone?” No one spoke. “Fine, more for me.” She downed the glass and filled it again then parked the bottle on the bench by the grand piano.

“Hillary,” said Herbie, “you know that can stain the wood. Mama would not approve.”

“Hmmm. Well, no one else around here seems interested in the rules anymore, so why should I care?”

Snooty rich people, yay! Keep cool and get a retainer.

“Mr. and Ms. Bacon?”

They turned in unison as if the family dog had just spoken. Hillary leaned against the piano, striking a key on the end. A deep bong filled the room.

“I’m Boise Montague, a private dick Junior has asked to look into the disappearance of your mother.”

At this they looked at each other and for the first time seemed to connect as siblings. Hillary erupted with laughter. She clanked her glass down on top of the piano and pounded out three dramatic notes.

Herbie stroked his mustache in a downward motion as he realized I wasn’t joking.

“Junior, do you really expect us to continue indulging this paranoid fantasy about mama? Really?” The last word came out as “rally.”

A door on the second floor creaked open. Harold descended the curved staircase. Hillary sneered at him over the rim of her glass as she guzzled more wine. He seated himself on the bottom step, leaning back on his elbows and throwing his legs straight out. Lounging. After casually smoothing back his wavy locks, he slid a pack of cigarettes from his shirt pocket and tapped them against his knee. The box made a hollow pop, pop, pop on his tattered jeans. He opened it and held the cigs out to each of us in turn. Although I didn’t smoke, I took one. This seemed to please him.

He said, “Boise, huh?” as he lit my cigarette. His lighter had little green palm trees on it.

“Oh god, the prince has deigned to grace us with his presence,” slurred Hillary as she poured another glass of wine. The liquid in