Read Online Flood by James Heneghan - Free Book Online

glass.
    â€œDesperate,” said Jack, doing the same.
    â€œStay out of trouble, Vinny,” Mustache said before they left.
    â€œAnd mind you take good care of the boy,” said Jack, scowling.
    Vinny jumped up and slipped the bolt back on the door, then opened the window and wrestled the boxes back inside, damp now with the rain.
    Andy watched him. The boxes had cigarette brand names printed on them. “You didn’t steal the cigarettes from a warehouse, did you, Dad?”
    â€œOf course not! Those two thicks are paid to be suspicious; it’s their job; but I don’t hold it against them. All they want is the drink. They know very well I came by the cigs honestly. I don’t have a vendor’s license to sell cigarettes; that’s my only crime.”
    â€œThen why not get a vendor’s license?” asked Andy. “Then they can’t put you in prison.”
    His father ripped open one of the boxes and started removing cartons of cigarettes and carrying them into the bedroom. Andy slid off the sofa and followed him in. He was on his knees pushing the cartons under the bed. “The license is dreadful expensive,” his father explained. “Besides, I don’t have a shop. City Hall will give no licenses to itinerant peddlers.”
    Andy didn’t know what an itinerant peddler was. In fact, he found the whole cigarette business extremelyconfusing. He knew in his heart that his father was innocent of any crime. But why had he lied about being home all night? And why was he hiding the cigarettes from the police, first outside on the fire escape and now under the bed? Just because he had no license? And wasn’t it a coincidence that the warehouse was broken into the same night his father came home with the boxes? And that his father and Cassidy were seen at the warehouse?
    Before any further disloyal suspicions could enter his head, he said quickly, “Don’t worry, Vinny, I won’t let them take you away to prison. I’ll tell the judge what a good father you are and how much I need you to look after me. And even if they do put you behind bars, I’ll rescue you in a daring prison escape.” Now he was calling him Vinny instead of Father — what had happened to that new Dad word he’d been practicing?— as if his father were a Mafia hood or something.
    â€œThat’s my boy!” Vinny grabbed him and kissed him enthusiastically on the top of his tangled head. “The finest son a man could have. Lucky, lucky man that I am!”
    His father
was
a Vinny, Andy realized; the name sat on him like a tailored suit; he looked like a Vinny, he smelled like a Vinny, he was the very essence of Vinnyness, which meant he was dangerous and unpredictable and exciting; it was as though he’d walked straight out of a Robert De Niro movie. He was a man who took chances, who lived dangerously, who had the police searching his home, not like boring old Clay, who had gone to his office every day in asuit, shirt, and tie and whose only brushes with the law involved parking tickets.
    Living dangerously
. The words sent a thrill through him.
    Vinny finished stashing the cartons of cigarettes under the bed; then he pulled on a pair of socks, an unironed shirt, and his food-stained sweater, and filled the inside pockets of his raincoat with packages of cigarettes torn fresh from their cartons, stuffing them into the deep secret pockets. Grabbing the empty raisins saucer off the table, he hurried into the kitchen. Andy heard the fridge door open and close. “What happened to the raisins I had in the fridge?” his father asked in alarm.
    â€œI was hungry, so I ate them.”
    â€œAh! They’re not for eating, Andy. They’re — now what will I do?— be a good boy and don’t eat the raisins, you hear? I’ll get more while I’m out.” He went back to the fridge and placed the raisins saucer, now filled with milk,