The Beasts of Juarez by R.B. Schow (best books to read for beginners txt) 📕

“You can’t just go through people’s homes!” Apple said, having had her proverbial feathers ruffled.

“Watch me, lady,” Jackson said.

“Address,” Scotty said, snapping his fingers to get her attention.

Apple begrudgingly gave him the address then said, “I swear, if your boyfriend takes anything—”

“The only thing we want is Alabama Hargrove. Beyond that, you and your possessions are perfectly safe.”

“I don’t want him going through my unmentionables,” she added. “I have private things in the drawers, personal belongings a young man shouldn’t be seeing.”

“He’s not looking for Alabama in your dresser drawers, Apple, so you can relax. Whatever secrets or embarrassments you have in there are yours to keep.”

A moment later, Scotty heard Jackson go out back. He wasn’t out there long. Scotty’s spirits were soaring before but now they waned.

Jackson shook his head then said, “You get the address?”

“Yeah, let’s leave Mrs. White to her grieving.”

“I’m calling the cops when you leave,” Apple said, real stern like she meant it.

“Who do you think gave us the lead in the first place?” Scotty asked with a laugh. This startled her. “Oh, yeah, Apple. The cops know exactly what happened as of about an hour ago. So if you see them, you tell them Walter Maddow said hello.”

“Your name is Walter?” she asked.

“I’m Walter, he’s Chuck, and now we’ll be on our way.”

When Scotty and Jackson left, it was with a shaky lead, a lead that was either bogus or a lead that would lead them straight to Alabama.

“So, Newark, huh?” Jackson asked.

“New Jersey, here we come,” Scotty grumbled.

On the way out of Queens, they stopped at a cell phone shop and bought Scotty both a wall-mounted charging cord and a car charger, the latter of which they used to bring Scotty’s LG back to life.

“Are you going to call Leopold or what?” Jackson asked.

“Not while we have leads,” Scotty responded. “Did you forget about the performance bonus?”

“Of course not,” Jackson said.

“Until he calls us, as long as we have leads, we keep working. Because I could use that fifty-grand and I know you could, too.”

“You’re not wrong there.”

“If we’re close to finding the girl, we don’t answer the phone, yours or mine. We only call him if we stall out and have to start back at zero.”

They drove out of New York in their rental car, crossed into New Jersey then found the address Apple White had given them.

“Nice place,” Jackson said, admiring the home.

“My fingers are crossed on this one,” Scotty replied, hopeful. The truth was that he couldn’t take many more disappointments.

The two of them got out of the car, walked up to the front door, knocked twice. A younger boy answered the door.

“Yeah?” he asked. He had to be twelve years old, maybe thirteen.

“Is your father home?” Scotty asked.

He turned and yelled, “Fake dad, it’s for you!”

A man about Scotty’s age came to the door and said, “How can I help you?”

“Martin White?” Scotty asked.

“Yes?”

Scotty introduced himself and Jackson, explained what they had found out about his brother, Keegan—omitting details about the little torture session, of course—and told him that Apple had sent them here.

“I ain’t talked to my brother, his crazy wife, or my lunatic mother in over a decade. Why she thinks I’d take in a kidnapped girl is just ridiculous.”

“I take it you are the black sheep of the family?” Jackson asked.

“Was it the success that gave it away?” he asked with hints of cold sarcasm.

“If you’re helping him in any way—” Scotty said.

“I ain’t helping no one,” he argued, his New York accent thick. “But if you see that sick pervert brother of mine again, you do whatchu gotta do. Lord knows he got it coming.”

“Why do you say that?” Jackson asked.

“There was always something wrong with him. He’s got Momma’s disease. That’s why none of us had kids. Momma was always pissed ‘cause she wanted a grandbaby. We made a pact, though, a promise to deny her any more kids on account of her having a head full’a rocks.”

“Who was that that answered the door?” Jackson asked.

“My wife’s kid from another marriage,” he said. “He’s a good boy. A smart-ass little turd sometimes, but a good boy nevertheless. Anyway, my wife now, I told her she wasn’t getting no kids from me. As I said, we didn’t want none of them having what Momma had.”

“From what I know of her,” Jackson said, “I understand.”

“Hey! Only I can say bad things about my mother. Not you, no matter what she did or how she thinks.”

Jackson held up his hands in surrender and apologized.

“Anyways, I lost my first wife over not wantin’ to give her a bunch’a rug rats, but I think the world is better if my genes aren’t nowheres near it. Momma, she’s like dealing with a child sometimes. Otha times, she’s an unhinged nightmare.”

“That’s very…responsible of you,” Scotty said, at a loss for words.

“Did you check Momma’s basement?”

“I did,” Jackson said.

“What about the room behind the cabinet? That’s where she kept us when we was bad, when we needed to get our heads straight.”

“I didn’t see a room down there,” Jackson said.

“It was dark and damn cold. And it was so quiet you could hear your own cells dividing inside of you.”

“Where exactly is it?”

“I just said it’s behind the antiques case on the wall.”

“Behind it?” Jackson asked.

He gave Scotty a funny look, then shook his head at Jackson and said, “We bought the place from some old Jew who survived the internment camps in ’44. He called the small room his Anne Frank closet.”

“That’s the girl who hid in a closet from the Nazis?” Jackson asked.

“As far as I can tell, yeah, but that’s just what he called it. You should check there, see whatchu find.”

“Do you mind if we have a look around here?” Scotty