Bones by the Wood by Catherine Johnson Page A

to do something about the length of the grass soon, but he couldn’t muster any enthusiasm for the project.  For himself, he couldn’t care less about it, and there was no one else who would be likely to come over who would be offended by the yard’s unkempt state.
     
    When the coffee was finished, he poured himself an unadulterated cup and took it to the small table surrounded by four chairs that he’d tucked against the wall in a corner of the main living room, out of the way, in front of French windows that opened out into the wilderness he was calling a yard.  He sat for a moment.  The entire house was silent bar the whir and hum of a couple of appliances.  The space felt infinitely lonely.  A house like this needed to be filled; there should be chatter and laughter and calls from room to room. With him as its sole inhabitant, it echoed, and it was just wrong.  To distract himself from the melancholy, Dizzy pulled his disposable mobile phone from his jeans pocket and called Samuel.
     
    Samuel answered after the first ring.  “Hey, Dizz.  You okay?”
     
    “Yeah, boss.  Just called with a thought.”
     
    Dizzy heard scuffling and a door shutting.  Samuel was probably going somewhere quiet or more private   “Okay, what’s up?”
     
    “Might be nothing, but you know how these nothings always come back to bite you on the ass.  Seems like all the time we’re finding out that the Rabids didn’t give a shit what they were doin’ here.  They always seemed tight enough on the runs, but they weren’t takin’ care of their town or their legit business interests.  They weren’t runnin’ protection for their clubs the way they should’ve and they weren’t keepin’ the town clean either.  They were just squatting here like a bad smell.”
     
    “You sound like you’ve got a handle on it.”
     
    Dizzy took a sip of his coffee.  “From what I know, yeah.  There’s probably gonna be more and I hope it ain’t nothin’ big, but I think we need to be careful.  Fuck knows who they rubbed the wrong way or who they didn’t pay the proper respect to.  We could be a bull’s-eye on someone’s target shoot and not know it.”
     
    “You’re right.  I’ll get Crash to scan around, do that shit he does, and see if he finds anythin’.”
     
    “I’ll tell Ferret to get in touch.  Two heads are better than one.”
     
    “Yes they are.  I’ll mention it to Eduardo, too.  Hopefully the Rabids colludin’ with the Tails was the only thing we didn’t see comin’.”
     
    Dizzy felt better knowing that Samuel felt the matter was due some attention.  “That should cover it all.”
     
    “Yeah.  You doin’ okay, brother? I know I sent you a long way from home.”  Dizzy could hear the low level of concern in the voice that Samuel was deliberately trying to keep even.  Samuel was still his President as far as Dizzy was concerned, and more so his friend.  He was trying not to intrude.
     
    “Yeah.  It’s slow goin’ buildin’ things up.  Still feels small, and I don’t like feelin’ like I don’t got enough weight at my back, but what I do have is prime.”
     
    “I’ve had some more contacts in that respect.  Maybe we can go over that next time you and your boys are in town?”
     
    “That’d be good. Now that we’re a full table, I want their take on anyone we might bring in.”
     
    “You’re good at this, Dizz. Just keep doin’ what you’re doin’.”
     
    Dizzy looked around the room, empty and silent except for himself, and felt like maybe he wasn’t getting it all right, but he bit that feeling back.  “Thanks, boss.  You take care, yeah.  Say ‘hi’ to the girls for me.”
     
    “Will do, brother.  Stay whole.”  With that, Samuel ended the call.
     
    Dizzy slumped back in the chair and gulped back the remainder of his coffee.  The silence was all-encompassing again.  Fuck, but he needed to get out, be where there were some people.  He didn’t