Blood Relatives Read Online Free PDF

yourself a cold martini or a hot toddy. You patted your dog on the head or your wife on the behind. You philosophized a bit, maybe wagging your head or clucking your tongue every so often. After all (you told yourself), if a person chooses to become a policeman instead of, say, a florist, then he’s got to realize he will more often be dealing with violence than with violets. If he chooses to become a cop in the first place, then he’s got to recognize in the second place that the cops are a paramilitary organization, and that’s because they are involved in a daily war, and that is a war against crime, ta-ra! And in any war, you’ve got your victims, so if you can’t stand the sight of blood, then you shouldn’t become either a cop or a noted brain surgeon—who anyway makes a lot more money than a cop does. Or a butcher, either, if you can’t stand the sight of blood. But if you do become a cop, then there are also certain tricks of the tradeyou have to learn early if you hope to survive, and one of those tricks is the very same one the bomber crews learned in World War II, and the hapless infantrymen learned in the Vietnamese adventure—how to enjoy being a civilian every now and then. Carella went home to his family, and Kling went to see Augusta Blair.
    There were those detectives on the squad who wondered aloud, and always in Kling’s presence, whether or not he really intended marrying that poor girl. Not that he was worth even her pinkie. A beauty such as Augusta Blair, whose face and form adorned the covers (not to mention the pages) of fashion and service magazines, whose somewhat breathy voice issued from radio and television loudspeakers alike, she of the jade-green eyes and auburn hair, she of the high cheekbones and even white teeth, she of the good breasts, narrow waist, wide hips, and splendid wheels—what right had a clod like Kling even to consider expecting her hand in marriage? Which he had expected. And which he’d asked for. And which she’d agreed to give to him. But that had been back in January, when a hood named Randall M. Nesbitt (the world might forget what he had done, or almost done, but Kling never would) had caused an upheaval in West Riverhead the likes of which the cops had never before seen, and never hoped to see again. Kling had asked Augusta to marry him on the night Nesbitt led his misguided street troops on what was to have been his last glorious peace-keeping mission. She had said yes moments before Kling walked to the phone and heard Carella’s voice urging him to get uptown because all hell was breaking loose. That had been in January. This was now September. The boys of the 87th wanted a wedding, or at least a bar mitzvah. But Meyer Meyer’s youngest son would not be thirteen till next summer, and Cotton Hawes showed no indication of ever askingChristine Maxwell to marry him, so that left Kling and Augusta as the only immediate possibilities on the horizon.
    Sanity. It all had to do with keeping one’s sanity. Weddings, birthdays, bar mitzvahs, anniversaries (no funerals, thank you; the squad dealt with too many funerals, most of them involving dead strangers), whatever joyous occasion the squad could find to celebrate, whatever helped to create a flimsy sense of tradition was all to the good. Like those World War II bomber crews, they were only protecting their sanity. They were finding opportunities that made them feel like ordinary civilians every now and then. They were keeping the old aspidistra flying. It would have gladdened their hearts, those sentimental old bastards, to have known that on this Sunday morning in September—Sunday, September 7, to be exact—Kling and Augusta were discussing plans for their wedding. They were, in fact, trying to decide which members of the squad should be invited to the wedding.
    “The thing I don’t want this to turn into,” Augusta said, “is some kind of Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association event, if you know what I