He's So Bad Read Online Free PDF

herself up and went out to the local bar. Not even three months later, she was dating Burt, who she eventually married. He was an asshole who drank a lot and fucked around on her. Once, in a drunken state, he told me about how when grizzlies and lions take a mate that already has kids, they kill the little bastards. Then he messed up my hair, laughed, and said, “I’ll let you live.”
    I told Vince what he said. Ann, Vince’s mother, was lurking in the hallway and overheard me. She made a lunch date with my mother, and after that, for an entire year, I spent more time at the Adams’ house than I did my own. Then my mother divorced Burt, and I stayed home more but spent the entire summer with the Adams at their family vacation house in Sag Harbor. Vince’s family was no Brady Bunch, but they weren’t half as fucked up as my mother and whichever husband she was married to for the moment. My mom already has five divorces under her belt.
    I can’t rest, so I sit on the side of the bed. I’m disturbed by the thought that I may not know how to live a normal existence without Vince. I order coffee service and watch the afternoon news for a few hours. The woman with the motorcycle helmet keeps invading my thoughts. There’s something about the shape of her face, eyes, and lips.
    By six thirty, the laundry service knocks on the door to return my shoes and suit. Both articles are fresh and ready for another wear. I put them on and head out. I’ll stay the night and drive back to Napa in the morning.
    Valet brings my car, and I put Ralph Kennedy’s address into the GPS. San Francisco is an old city. The natives have been dogmatic about preserving the historical architecture, but the landscape has changed ever since the technological boom. Techies like new shit, and they’re the new kings of the city. Both factors make me grin from ear to ear. There’s some merit in being on the ground floor of giving the old San Francisco a facelift.
    The night is breezy, and the air is tepid. I roll down the front windows. The closer I get to the ocean, the saltier the air smells. Ralph lives in the Sea Cliff neighborhood, but the mansions I pass don’t excite me. They’re mostly Victorian and Edwardian with sprinkles of Spanish colonial; the neighborhood smells of old money. I don’t have an aversion to old money though. Unlike new money, they have a lot of class and knowledge of how to keep their assets and make them grow.
    I’m not surprised when the GPS instructs me to turn into the long driveway of the best-looking mansion on the street. It’s a Spanish Colonial. The bowl-shaped stone fountain stands out in the middle of a manicured lawn and trimmed shrubs.
    A valet station is set up in front of a flagstone footpath. I leave my car with the attendant, and he directs me up a path and through an enclosed and intimate courtyard with red rose bushes woven through the gate. The red brick groundwork stops in front of a steep set of white limestone steps. I take them up to the front door. I’m impressed by a door made of white frosted glass and decorative black wrought iron twisted into the shape of vines and roses. The top part of the door is open, and I hear laughter and conversation. It sounds as though a lot of guests are present.
    I hit the doorbell. The button lights up, but there isn’t a chime. I’ve seen this sort of silent doorbell before. A few seconds later, a guy dressed in a black suit with a white shirt appears.
    “Welcome, sir,” he says. “May I have your name?”
    I tell him my name. He nods once and opens the gate. I straighten my collar as I follow him inside. My gaze rolls around the open floor plan. It’s furnished just as I thought it would be—fancy furniture, expensive fixtures, and exotic figurines.
    I’ve been smothering my nervousness since this afternoon, and now it’s gushing back in a raging tidal wave. The butler, who has made sure he remained three steps ahead of me, stops before reaching the