Absolute Rage Read Online Free PDF Page B

dog hadn’t moved, since she had down-stayed him and hadn’t spoken the release. The dog would have stayed there had a butcher’s cart overturned before him and strewn the platform with prime rib. Billy Ireland was a hell of a trainer. She smiled and cooed at the dog, who wagged his tail, but still didn’t budge. The train pulled in and a woman and two men got off. One of these, very tall and broad-shouldered, carrying a canvas overnight bag, and dressed in a beautifully cut tropical-weight blue pinstripe, was her husband, Roger Karp, universally known as Butch. She watched him look up and down the platform. He saw her coming toward him with the huge dog at her heels, and she observed, first, how tired he seemed, his face gray and heavy with the City, and then how it lit up when he saw her. Oh, good! They embraced and kissed, not just a suburban-wife-at-station peck, but a real kiss with plenty of chewing, like teenagers. It was always something of a surprise to both of them that they were still interested although they had been married since the Carter administration.
    They walked arm in arm to the truck. “So how was the week that was?” she asked.
    â€œDon’t ask.” He settled himself in the passenger seat and waited as she let the dog into the back and got in behind the wheel.
    â€œYou look tired.”
    â€œYou look great. You’re tan. You’ve been lounging on the beach.”
    â€œUh-huh. I met our neighbor there this afternoon. She’s got a little girl the twins’ age.”
    â€œOur neighbor? That old couple?”
    â€œNo, on the other side. In the big white house.”
    â€œI thought that was empty.”
    â€œMe, too, but she’s opening it up. They’re going to sell it. Her dad kicked off and there’s some kind of inheritance tangle. I got her drunk and pried out her secrets. They’re a fine old Long Island family fallen on hard times. A nice woman, though—Rose Wickham Heeney.”
    â€œHeeney?”
    â€œYeah, it doesn’t go with the other names. Apparently she married a working stiff from Appalachia, which didn’t fly too great with the folks.”
    â€œSo you have a basis.”
    She gave him a sharp look. Karp’s family was a sore point. “Yes, and not only that, there’s something worrying her. She’ll be talking away and then kind of freeze and look around for the kid, a little panic reaction.”
    â€œWell, you know how to pick ’em.”
    â€œI’m not getting involved. Meanwhile she’s someone to talk to, and the little girl’s a doll. GC is smitten.”
    â€œHow are they?”
    â€œThriving. Zak has his rat gun and Billy to tag around after, Gianni is building sand castles of ever greater extent and complexity and he’s farming up a storm. They stay out of each other’s hair.”
    â€œAnd your felon?”
    â€œMy felon is fine, and I wish you wouldn’t call him that. He did his jolt and he’s a citizen now.”
    â€œAren’t there any girl dog trainers?”
    â€œWomen. Of course, but I haven’t found anyone as good as Billy Ireland.” She slowed the truck for the turn off Route 25. The sun had sunk at last into Queens and the world had turned pearly blue. She switched on the truck’s lights. “You’re just jealous. You think we’re doing it on the kibble sacks.”
    â€œAre you?”
    â€œNot on the kibble sacks. And again she asks, changing the subject, how was your week, darling?”
    â€œHot. It was over ninety all week and it’s only June.”
    â€œI mean work.”
    A cloud came over his face. “Fine. The usual.” Which meant, not fine. Unusually awful.
    But he greeted the boys cheerfully enough when they ran out to mob him, and he seemed more relaxed, later, at the table, dressed in worn jeans and a T-shirt. The twins filled him in on the week’s events, including a