In Flames Read Online Free Page A

they took my books, I’ll never know, the guards were all illiterate. But outside of a dog a book is man’s best friend, inside of a dog it’s too dark to read.” Hugging himself with the sprightly movements of a happy little boy, Vinny rocked back on his heels grinning at me, a skeletal imp of a man. Everything seemed to strike him as funny, he would have found mirth in Sunday sermons at the cathedral. He was like a suit stuffed full of comedians, each one driving the others manic. I could almost believe the story going around that when Delgado Vinny’s number finally came up and he looked his executioner in the eye, he’d giggle, tell the hangman a joke, and die laughing.
    Vinny waved to the bartender and pointed at my near-empty glass. “
Hermano
, another Jameson here,
por favor
.” He turned to me. “Jameson, breakfast of champions, señor, accept no substitutes. Forget all the rum. May I sit here? Just for a moment. You have the only free chair and my new shoes are killing me.”
    “Sure, take a load off your mind.”
    “Stale joke.” He sat beside me and lowered his voice. “Still I’m not offended, my skin is light but thick. I’m having a perfectly wonderful evening though tonight isn’t it. You want to improve the world? My motto is, make your jokes more hilarious. ‘The world wouldn’t be in such a snarl had Marx been Groucho instead of Karl’—Irving Berlin, American poet. And people here say I have no values. Bullshit. The secret to life, amigo, is honesty and fair dealing, and if you can fake that, my friend, you got it made here. Still you know those same people say everything about me is nihilism and cynicism, sarcasm and orgasm.
Mierda,
with a slogan like that I could run for office in this country and win. Hey, my friend, life’s short, it’s hard out here for a pimp and morality is relative, the heart wants what it wants so take what you can get while you can still get it in this place. San Iñigo may be small but I wouldn’t want to paint it, señor, just be careful what you try around here. I can remember when I was fourteen and the first time I ever had sex, I still have the receipt in my wallet. Okay, end of sermon. By the way, have you met Sister Emma? You must. She’s the second act. I only open for her. She tells every newcomer’s fortune. She tells anybody’s fortune even if it’s risky making predictions in San Iñigo, especially about the future, still she never makes a mistake. She predicts and—
Ay caramba
—government ministers brown their pants. I’ll do you a favor and introduce you. See her over there…”

Sister Emma
    I turned and spotted Elaine in a clingy green dress—she was leaning over, her breasts swaying, and she was tête-à-tête with a short elderly woman in a black veil and robe, a San Iñigan.
    Delgado Vinny signaled to the old woman and Elaine didn’t look pleased, she grew tight-lipped, her eyes tensing as Sister Emma scurried across the terrace like a dark beetle on the attack. Far more quickly than my third or fourth Jameson state of mind would let me move, the old woman grabbed my wrist. “God’s peace to you, señor, not as the world knows peace today, but only as He knows peace. I give you His peace.” I was startled as much by what Sister Emma said as by her handcuff grasp on my wrist. Her English was as good as Vinny’s. She spat out a few words of island dialect at the comedian and he slipped off, fluttering from guest to guest like a trapeze artist on swings of ebullience and ropes of laughter. I wasn’t really interested in Sister Emma’s fortune-telling, I knew why I was in San Iñigo: set to start earning my fortune, not have it told by a party entertainer. But the old woman made me uncomfortable, reluctant to offend a seer who could set San Iñigo government ministers trembling. Her face, dark brown and wrinkled as elephant hide, was framed by a black cotton shawl with white trim like an old-fashioned nun’s habit without