The Bannerman Solution (The Bannerman Series) Read Online Free PDF

into lampposts if they weren't careful." Lesko paused, pushing the ice around the rim of his glass. "You shouldn't say things like that, Susan."
    "Oh come on, daddy. It was just a harmless dumb crack."
    "Yeah, but you got too much class. You're a lady. And you're beautiful."
    "I am not beautiful. What I am is okay."
    She was, she supposed, maybe a notch better than okay. She did inherit her grandmother's figure, and her auburn hair and hazel eyes. But most of the compli ments she'd received in her life were more like exp res sions of amazement that she was her father's daughter.
    Susan glanced around the restaurant in search of way to change the subject. She caught a man at the bar staring in her direction. He lowered his face toward his drink, revealing a balding scalp. Something familiar about him. Then her eyes drifted on, over walls crammed with fading photos of old sports heroes.
    "How long have you been coming here?" she asked Lesko.
    "First time was my fourteenth birthday. My father brought me. Same as I brought you."
    "Oh, right." She remembered him talking about it. Except on his birthday he was taken to a Jake LaMotta fight at the Garden, and she had to settle for the Ice Capades. "That's when Jake LaMotta came back here after the fight and your father got him to give you a boxing lesson."
    "Yeah." Lesko smiled at the memory. "What made it great was Rocky Graziano was here that night, too. He comes over and says if I listen to LaMotta I'll spend the whole next year getting knocked on my ass, excuse me, because what LaMotta knows about defense he could fit in his jock. LaMotta gets very insulted at this and these two look like they're going to go at it, but it's all an act for my benefit. Then LaMotta shows me how to counter a right lead. I decide not to mention that my father already taught me to either kick the guy in the crotch or come in under it, spin the guy, and put a choke hold on him until his lights go out.
    "Anyway, LaMotta and Graziano are still arguing so LaMotta asks the crowd for a vote on which one of them spent the most time on his ass and another one on which one of them is less ugly. LaMotta wins both times." Lesko turned toward the table he'd sat at that night, his eyes darting around as he spoke as if he could see it all happening again. "I still got the menu they both signed for me that night. Also Johnny Mize of the Giants who was in here too. It's probably up in your mother's attic."
    "Want me to look next time I see her?"
    He hesitated, then shook his head. "It's no big deal."
          "I got to meet a skating clown for my fourteenth bi irthday." She pretended to pout, as if cheated. "It's one of my treasured memories. Right u p there with museum trips and rides on the Staten Island ferry."
    " Y eah, well, they were your mother's idea mostly. Anyway, it's not like I didn't take you to fights and ball games after you got older."
    "After you were divorced, y ou mean."
    "Same thing." He waved off the subject with his hand. "Listen, can you handle a steak or do you want a veal chop?"
    "I'd like us to have a talk first."
    "We haven't been talking?"
    "Not about you, we haven’t. Things like how you are , what you've been doing, do you have a lady friend .. I mean, this is only about the third time we've talked in almost two years."
    "What do you mean? I call you at least a couple of times a month and we've been to, like, ten ballgames."
    "Yes, and about half of those calls were to break dates. It was like pulling teeth even to ge t you over on Christ mas. And I think you deliberately take me to ballgames because it's hard to sit a n d talk at them."
    Lesko dropped his eyes. "I'm sorry, sweetheart. I guess I haven't been much of a father."
    "Oh, now there's a good move," Susan arched. "Play to Susan's sympathy and maybe she'll drop the subject o f her father ducking her."
    "I have not been ducking you."
    “Liar.”
    Lesko looked around the room as if for help. "What is it about women?"