Irresistible Impulse Read Online Free PDF Page B

but could hardly object since he had himself started the practice of calling the twins, during that early period when they had been indistinguishable larvae, such things as Mutt and Jeff, Hekyl and Jekyl, Abbott and Costello. They were plenty distinguishable now. Zik looked up at his father and then away, and carefully placed a block on top of a tower. Somewhat cool and methodical was Zik, at one year. Karp knelt and put Zak down, emotional and aggressive Zak, who promptly knocked over Zik’s tower. Wails.
    “That sounds like my cue, dear,” said Marlene brightly. “Posie?”
    Posie laughed and gathered the two infants to her mighty breasts, jiggling them, rocking them, crooning to them, until they calmed down. She was a seventeen-year-old from rural Pennsylvania with a disturbing chemical and sexual history and a remarkable touch for infant care. Marlene had rescued her from life on the street and a particularly violent boyfriend.
    “Hey, have a good time, you guys,” said Posie, her rubbery face grinning, as they slipped from the nursery. They had still to escape from Lucy.
    Who whined, “Why can’t I come?”
    “Honey, you know we all go out together on Saturday. Your daddy and I need some time for just us. Posie is going to order pizza for all of you. We’ll be home early. Did you finish your math?”
    In answer Lucy sent her pencil skittering across the oak floor, and assembled on her face an expression of hollow-eyed despair suitable to a refugee from the Nazis. This expression touched Karp’s heart, as it was designed to do, but he knew better than to suggest that just this once the three of them might go out, as they often had before the twins came. Marlene would not have stood for it.
    She said severely, “Pick up that pencil and finish your work! I want to look it over before school tomorrow.”
    Lucy snarled something sotto voce that Marlene chose not to hear, and the two adults left the office.
    “That child!” said Marlene when they were out in the street. “I swear, sometimes I want to throttle her. She was terrific this afternoon when we took our walk, and as soon as she got back to the office, she turned into a spoiled brat. She is not doing well in school either.”
    “Marlene, it’s third grade,” said Karp. “Give her a break. She’ll still get into Smith.”
    “She won’t get into fourth grade if she keeps on the way she’s going. You don’t get the notes from her teacher. She’s acting out, as they say.”
    “The twins.”
    “I can’t think of anything else,” Marlene said. “It’s too early for puberty.”
    “I’ll try to spend more time with her.”
    “That’d help. Poor little kid! Here she is, doted on by two parents, and bango, all of a sudden she’s an extra. We didn’t figure two babies would take so much energy.”
    No, we did not, thought Karp as they walked slowly up Broadway. Nor did we calculate that one of us would be starting a heavy new job while the other of us would be up to her neck in a business that required night work, weekend work, and continual crisis. Guns in the house. Karp made a mental effort to stop this line of thought, which he knew from experience led to irritability, argument, and pain. As Marlene never tired of saying, he knew what she was before he married her. True enough, as far as it went. He had married a graduate of Smith and Yale Law, a rising prosecutor. He had long ceased to pine consciously for what still dwelt deep within his reptile brain, of a house in a leafy suburb, or a condo in a good building, himself coming home, she being there, wooden spoon in hand, smiles, the children taken care of, displayed for the paternal cuddle. No, Marlene was going to have a career, which was fine, but Karp had counted on a woman with Marlene’s talent pursuing something more regular, at the D.A.’s, or a slot at some big firm, or even teaching at a law school. Marlene was smart; she could write; her intelligence was wide-ranging. A short