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“Everything about you is our business right now, Tommy boy.”That was the second time in two days that someone had called him that.He didn’t like it anymore now than he did yesterday.“You find yourself a gun yet?I’m thinking that it’s going to be a bit harder for you to find one now that we’re watching you all the time.Yes, sir, I think we might just enjoy watching over you for the rest of your life around here.”

When he decided that he’d had enough of the good old idiots talking to him, he realized that Earl had disappeared.Walking toward the building, he was about three feet from the door when he was blocked.He didn’t understand how he was blocked, but he couldn’t take another step forward, only backward.Tommy couldn’t even reach out his hand to try and grab the doorknob to get in.He asked Fred what was going on.

“I would imagine that the good queen has put some magic around the place.If you have ill will in your heart or mind, then you’ll not be able to enter.That’s right smart of her to do that to you.Right smart indeed.I would imagine, too, that it’s all around their houses.Goodness, that queen is surely smart for putting that sort of magic around the place.Don’t you think so?”He said that he didn’t think it was smart at all.And how was he supposed to talk to his family if he was blocked?“I’d say that you’re going to have to change your ways if that’s something you could do.I’m kinda leaning toward you not being able to do anything like that.You being nice isn’t something that you know how to do anymore.”

“So in order to get past this magic, all I have to do is be nice and think nice things.I can do that.”He tried several more times, and it did him little good.“This is just stupid.I’m calling my brother and having him come out here and get this taken care of.I’m part of this family, too, you know.I shouldn’t be blocked out of anything that has the Reader name on it.Mother fuck.”

Tommy pulled out his cell phone and tried to make it work.In a fit of rage last night, after ordering a pizza and them not giving it to him when he didn’t have any money until later had pissed him off something terrible.He’d tossed the phone across the room and heard it shatter about the same time he realized that he wouldn’t have any kind of phone because he didn’t have the money to get himself one.Finally, after several tries and a lot of curse words, he got it to call Earl.

“I’m needing you to come out here and move this ridiculous curse off the building.”He couldn’t believe that he’d been reduced to believing in magic to get things done his way.“It won’t allow me to come into the plant, and I need to talk to you about something.”

“I’ve spoken to Dad, and he said that he’d not given you permission to get any cash out of me.Also, he said to tell you that if you want money, then to get a job.None of us are going to be funding your little projects anymore.Did you really take out a million-dollar policy on me so you could collect on it when I’m dead?”He asked him where he’d gotten that information, and he just knew he was going to say Walsh had told him.And he did.“Edgar said that you’d taken out one on all of us but for Mom.That’s pretty shitty, don’t you think so?I mean, how were you going to pay for it if you don’t have a job or money right now?I’m assuming you read the fine print on them.You have the policy less than ninety days before the person is dead, then they contact the police.That means that you’d have to make three payments on it before you could kill me off.Which, by the way, isn’t going to happen.”

“You don’t think I can kill you, or you don’t believe that I’d kill you, my brother?”He said neither one was going to work.“Oh, but I believe that you’re wrong about that, big brother.I’m very handy with a gun.”

He looked around when he remembered the police.But they were talking to some of the truckers that were in the lot.Truckers were a dirty lot, and he would bet that by the end of the day, his family wouldn’t have any truckers working for them as the police would find out their plans of ripping themoff.

“You’re not a nice person, are you?I mean, I knew that since you were little, but you’ve gotten worse with age.I don’t like you very much, Tommy.”Tommy looked at Earl when he spoke.“Yes, I’m talking about you and how wrong I’ve been about you going through a phase in your life.But you’re worse than you were as a child even.”

“Like I care what you feel about me.When you’re dead, and you will be, I promise you that, when you’re dead and buried, I’m still going to be here running this place like I should have been doing from the beginning.You were never smart enough to run a multimillion-dollar business.”Earl grinned and told him that it was a multibillion-dollar business, not million.“Whatever you have to tell yourself, you pansy.There is no way that Dad would allow you to run this place if it was indeed a multibillion-dollar business.You’re just too stupid.”

Earl laughed, but it wasn’t friendly like he normally would expect from his family.But hard and harsh.When he straightened his tie and looked at him up and down, Tommy felt less than worthy of himself for some reason.

“I might be stupid to you, but I am running this business, and Tabby is going to be making more at her plant.See that I’m right on that.”He laughed again and started to turn away before he looked at him again.“You’re not worth me standing out here and wasting my breath on.You won’t get into the plant ever, and I find myself thrilled about that.Good luck with your endeavors, Tommy.I hope you get what you deserve.”

When he walked away from him, Tommy saw red.Christ, what was with his family these days?Thinking that he was going to be all right with them getting the last word in on a conversation that he was having with them.Not to mention turning their backs on him like he wasn’t anything to them.But no matter how much he yelled at Earl to get his ass back here, he just waved him off.Tommy was so mad that he could feel his head pounding and his belly churn up.Leaning over to puke, he wasn’t the least bit surprised to find that there was blood in his vomit.

It had been happening for the last week and a half that he’d get so upset that he’d throw up, and there would be blood in it.At first, it was only a little bit, but it was becoming worse the more his family stressed him out.This was all their fault, they were making him ill, and he wasn’t going to allow them to feel badly for him.No, this was all their fault, and if he got sicker, he wasn’t going to allow them near him.

“Dirty bastards, all of them.”He left the plant after throwing up a couple more times.He hoped that someone would see it and tell on them.It had to be a code violation for them to have blood just lying around.Before he’d gone five feet from his mess, one of the workers had come out and hosed it off.He’d bet that they’d not tell his brother either that Tommy was puking up blood.“You’ll all get yours in the end.See that you don’t.All of you will pay for making me sick like this.”

Making his way home, he tossed up about four more times.No one said anything to him about it, so he just puked where he happened to be standing.As soon as he was in his place, he got him some of the pink shit that he’d been taking all his life and drank half a bottle of it.Of course, it came right back up, looking pinker for the blood that was mixed in it now.

Going to bed, he let his head pound and was glad that Fred had stopped speaking to him for now.He didn’t know if he could handle anything more today.He was just too sick to care what happened to the little voice or the man that would drive him crazy.

Chapter 6

Mandy watched her uncle as he laid on the bed with all kinds of tubes in him.He’d been found outside on his steps to his apartment covered in vomit and blood.It had taken them two days to figure out who he was, and by then, there had been a police report on him about him being missing.Not from anyone in the family, but the police were looking for him.

“What the hell are you doing in my house?”She got up and shook her mom awake when Tommy—she didn’t like him enough to call him uncle anymore, but now that he was awake, her mom could deal with him.“I asked you a question.What are you doing in m—where the hell am I?”

“Hospital.You’ve been here for four days now.”Her mom stood up and smiled at her.“Honey, if you want to go to the cafeteria now, I think that Edgar is coming, and he’ll take you there.”

“Thanks, Mom.”She glared at Tommy.“You’re not a nice person, are you?I thought you were, but you’re just as mean as those boys that I go to school with.A mean person is all you are.”

As soon as Edgar came into the room, she asked him to take her to get something to eat.After kissing Mom, he took her hand into his much larger one, and they made their way out again.It made her slightly sick to be around Tommy, and she didn’t much care for hospitals either.

“What is it you wish to eat?”She couldn’t help it, she burst into tears, and Edgar picked her up in his arms and found them a table way in the back of the room.“Oh honey, you’re all right.He can’t hurt you anymore.I promise you that I’ll take care of him if he so much as looks at you funny.”

“It’s not just him.It’s Levi, too.”He asked her who that was.“When Mom and I were in Tennessee, this man moved into our house without Mom knowing about it.He would beat her up daily when she wouldn’t just turn over her car keys to him and her money.Then he started on me, and we came up with this plan.”She sat in the chair across from Edgar and didn’t look at him while she finished.“Mom was so worried about me because he was getting worse all the time, but she couldn’t get him out of the house.So…she really didn’t want to do it, but I told her that it would be all right.And it was.She pushed me down the stairs.”

“I’m sorry, what?”Mandy told Edgar that she had to do it to get her out of the unsafe house.“She pushed you down the stairs?”

“I had on this bike helmet and wrist braces on my arms.Even my legs were covered in this heavy moving material that we had when we moved into our house.She cried more than I did when the fall broke my leg.But once the ambulance got there, she was better.Not great, but better, and she went to the hospital with me.We never told anyone, but your brothers’ wives figured it out and had Levi arrested for trespassing.As soon as he was in jail, Mom looked so much better.I don’t want her brother to hurt me again, Edgar.If he does, I know that my mom will kill him, and she’ll end up in prison.”

He held her while she cried.It had been so long since anyone had held her like he was that she felt herself relaxing more and more.But when she sat up to finish her tale, he looked like he was upset.She asked him not to be mad at her mom.

“I’m not.I was just thinking how desperate she must have been to harm you.I’m very proud of her for thinking of things that would get you out of the house and away from that stranger.I’m going to talk to my sisters and ask them about it, too.The man needs to be dealt with, too.”