Mom’s B & B
by
Robb White
“Let me in, Ma,” I said. “I’m not selling bibles.”
Don King’s gray-streaked, electro-shock hair, loud, always grinning at a private joke.
“I’m bringing Matti his tea. Wanna come up?”
“I’ll pass.”
“Suit yourself.”
She once danced in a ballet troupe. I tried to imagine all three hundred pounds of her doing a grand jeté in that red muumuu with the big yellow flowers.
She drove a rental truck 250 miles to Ann Arbor to pack up Uncle Matti’s apartment, then argue with the staff at his rehab facility until they released him into her custody.
She came downstairs wheezing.
“God, I could kill for a cigarette.”
“Morbid obesity, half a lung, heart palpitations. Makes sense.”
“Shut up, you.”
“How’s business?”
“Fine . . . next question . . . No . . . you can’t . . . sleep here.”
“I could put an air mattress next to Uncle.”
“He’ll wake up and have a heart attack. He hasn’t signed the papers yet.”
I cocked an eyebrow. “I could, you know, help.”
Excess adipose tissue gave her eyes the look of gray, wave-polished stones. “Cops get one whiff of a shitbird like you around, I’ll never see a dime.”
-END-
Bio:
Robb White is a Derringer-nominated author of genre fiction and three series detectives: Thomas Haftmann, Raimo Jarvi, and Jade Hui. Betray Me Not was selected for distinction by the Independent Fiction Alliance in 2022. His 2024 publications include a collection of noir tales: Fade to Black: Noir Stories of Grifters, Drifters, and Unlovable Losers. His latest is Jersey Girl from Close to the Bone Publishing, U.K