The Borzoi Killings Read Online Free PDF Page B

hair. Brad, still speaking, didn’t remove his hand from the man’s wrist even when he saw Juan. In his gentle voice, Brad said, “Juan, you look better than anybody here. You’re the only sober one in the room. Sit down. Rest. Join us.”
    The man with Brad said, “You hit the A-List with Juan. He’s gorgeous!”
    Brad laughed. “He has a wife and little kids, Trevor.”
    “Jesus Christ did, too. But that robe got all those boy disciples to fall in love with Jesus, and Juan’s tuxedo does the same.”
    Juan had not only a ravishing smile—one that guided him through many of the new places and scenes in his life—but a stoic patience. He listened without speaking as he heard Brad, who had barely drank during the evening and was much more focused than his remaining guests, say, “Juan is a man for all seasons. Stonemason. Gardener. Landscaper. Grass cutter. Tree sculptor. Host.”
    Trevor said, “And dog trainer, too, because those two skinny bitches were once just beasts.”
    “He has a way,” said Brad, “with dogs.”
    “That reminds me of a snide comment about Shakespeare’s wife, Anne Hathaway, who was much older than the Bard of Avon. She seduced him: people whispered, ‘Anne-hath-a-way.’”
    Brad said, “Trevor, enough with the literary allusions. You spend too much time learning useless things.”
    The discomfort the half-understood conversation caused Juan was broken by Sylvia and Felix as they suddenly trotted off in the direction of the pool. Juan took the dogs’ movement as his cue to walk toward the doors that opened onto the pool terrace. He was exhausted. He’d learned that maintaining the patience and dignity he desired in this world of new words, people, meanings, inflections, and gestures could make him more tired than building a stone wall. He decided to sit down for the first time during the long, noisy night on one of the patio chairs near the luminous pool lit from submerged lights. He was also unsettled by the image, etched in his mind, of Brad resting his hand for so long on Trevor’s wrist. In Mexico, men who touched for that long did so furtively, letting go as soon as they thought someone saw them. Had Juan misunderstood, or not completely understood, Brad’s grace and generosity toward him? Did Brad Richardson want to touch his hand?
    Sitting near the gently illuminated pool, Juan thought he was alone. The Borzois stretched quietly on either side of him. Herubbed the bony base of Sylvia’s ears. Stars filled the clear sky—no haze, no clouds, just utter blackness surrounding the stars. Nights in Mexico, in the desert village where he was raised, were often this clear and with a sky alive with stars. As a teenager, he sometimes lay on his back on the ground and gazed at the faintly glowing stardust of nighttime skies.
    And then Juan heard a sound, a voice, a moan of pleasure. Across the blue-and-green illumined water of the pool, Joan Richardson stretched out on her back on a long lounge chair at the far end of the terrace. On his knees between her spread legs kneeled Hank Rawls. Joan Richardson’s face was raised to the sky, her neck and upper back slightly arched.
    The Senator’s right hand was between her open legs. Juan, who had first made love to a woman when he was 14 (she was 32), knew exactly what was happening. The cadence of Joan Richardson’s moans told Juan that this caressing, this climaxing had been unfolding for many minutes and that Hank Rawls was very skillful in making that happen.
    Juan rose, soundlessly, from his chair. In unison, Sylvia and Felix got up and followed him. Although their paws clicked on the terrace, there was no way that either Joan Richardson or the man stroking her could hear Juan’s footsteps or the dogs’ nails. Juan slid the glass door to the terrace shut. Brad Richardson was still sitting on the sofa and talking. Trevor was still next to him. They weren’t touching. There was laughter from the people on the sofa opposite