In the City of Shy Hunters Read Online Free Page B

silver loop, hair tossing.
    Sophistication.
    Savoir faire.
    Postured disregard.
    Sexy totale.
    Shit from Parisian Shinola.
    I’ll have one of those too, Ruby said. Then: Where’d you learn to roll a cigarette like that?
    A friend of mine, I said. Charlie 2Moons, I said, Taught me, I said, A long time ago.
    I have my mother’s nerves, so sometimes I stutter.
    Language my second language.
    CLYDE TRUE SHOT Experienced Driver was big, everything about him big, extra lovely as Rose would say—chest, belly, thighs, shoulders, arms, hands. His big hands on the steering wheel, on both hands on every finger, even the thumbs, the same silver ring. From the side I was on, True Shot’s nose was a hook that poked out of two high cheekbones. His hair was black and thick and long and tied back in a bun with a red paisley bandanna tied around his head. From his neck, a beaded buckskin bag. The horizontal line was blue trader beads and the intersecting vertical line, red beads. The buckskin bag hung from a buckskin necklace.
    No doubt about it, I was staring. Same way as when you stare at a big snake. And big snakes always look back. On a lava rock ledge in full sun, the big snake doesn’t want to even move, but the snake turns, and his eyes end on you.
    On me. True Shot put his eyes on me. I mean, his mirrors.
    True Shot’s mirrors. An accessory True Shot never went without, his mirrored Armani sunglasses.
    When True Shot put his mirrors on me, I could see myself in there on the surface, a circus freak, distorted at the state fair, my big circus nose and mustache and bug eyes.
    I saw him first! Ruby said. He’s mine!
    Clyde True Shot? I said.
    Drop the Clyde, Ruby said. He’s just True Shot.
    True Shot, I said. Would you like, I said, A cigarette?
    No, thank you, Ruby said. He don’t smoke socially.
    There was a hand on my shoulder, and it was the French Vogue man handing me one of his cigarettes, rolled fat.
    Merci, I said, lit the cigarette, inhaled. Marijuana? I said.
    Fucking hashish, French Vogue said.
    In the rearview mirror, True Shot’s mirrors were on me. Smoke big, True Shot said. His voice was soft, resonant, like a child singing a lullaby in a culvert.
    TRUE SHOT AT the wheel, Ruby riding shotgun, French Vogues, me; we are inside, in our smoke cut through with high-beam headlights. Outside, all about us, out the windshield in front, out the windows in back: stars, speeding light, red and amber, huge white flying saucers, eyes.
    I was rolling another cigarette, rolling six more cigarettes around. I was not speaking French or any words of any language. My butt was burning on the van floor, so I sat on the old suitcase with the travel stickers on it. Drops of sweat all around me.
    True Shot hit the brakes and under us was a screeching. We swerved. One French Vogue banged her head on the side of the van. We slid to a stop. From out Ruby’s window, I could see a wall of concrete. A backhoe. An electric sign pointed repeating yellow arrows at Ruby’s head. There was water flowing onto the right lane of the roadway, and mud. I thought it was mud. The electric yellow made the water look like thin buttermilk. There were cans and things floating. From the embankment, the thin buttermilk was a waterfall onto the roadway over a truck tire and the back seat of a car. Then the turds. I smelled and I knew: The milk was a river of sewage. True Shot started honking.
    Fuck! Ruby said. We should have taken the fucking tunnel.
    Fuck! the French Vogues all said. Fuck!
    Then: Watch for cops! True Shot said.
    True Shot shifted into first and turned the steering wheel to the right.
    Watch for cops! Ruby yelled back at us.
    Then Ruby watched the right side and True Shot the left side, and True Shot guided the van through the narrow space in between the backhoe and the electric yellow arrow sign. Milk-shit river lapped at the bottom of the side door. There was a bump and the front right tire went up on