The Long Good Boy Read Online Free PDF Page B

curls, wiping the corners of her mouth where lipstick tends to smudge, pulling up her panty hose, and doing something distinctly unladylike in the vicinity of her crotch.
    She pulled Clint out of her jacket and let him down, bending and whispering to him. I saw him lift his leg and immediately get scooped up again and tucked not back into her jacket but under her arm.
    She reached for the door and pushed it open, disappearing into the dark. Then a hand came back out and pulled the door closed. In the quiet, I could hear it click shut.
    I let out my breath. I was no longer feeling cold. I looked straight across to that lit-up window now, thinking that if either of them looked out, they would be able to see Dashiell standing on the bridge. So I tapped the board in front of him, and when he lay down, I put an arm across his wide, warm back and waited again.
    After ten or so minutes I changed my mind, deciding to abandon my hiding place before Chi Chi appeared. When she stepped gingerly out into the parking area in front of Keller’s, stopping to put some bills inside the pocket of Clint’s coat, I was across the street. But she didn’t see me. She picked her way under the bridge and headed back toward Washington Street. Until her phone rang.
    â€œWho’s this? LaDonna, this you?”
    â€œNo. It’s Rachel.”
    â€œWhat you doing up so late?”
    â€œWaiting for you.”
    â€œWhat you mean?”
    She’d stopped walking, but she wasn’t looking around. She stood in the dark under the sidewalk bridge, her back to me, Clint’s little rump sticking out beyond her elbow, his tail hanging straight down like a plumb line.
    â€œI’m across the street.”
    Now she turned, frantic, until she found me with her eyes. I stood there watching as she crossed the street, putting Clint down when she got there.
    â€œWhat you doing, spying on me?”
    â€œExactly.”
    â€œI can explain.”
    â€œI thought you might be able to, but it would have been a hell of a lot simpler for you to tell me what’s going on in the first damn place.”
    â€œIt’s not what you think.”
    â€œAnd what is that? What do I think, Chi Chi?”
    â€œThat it’s all about the money. Well, it is steady money. I admit that. He pays real good. Better than most.” She unzipped the little pocket in Clint’s coat and pulled out two twenties and a ten. “Sometimes, some of ’em, you know, when it’s slow out and I really need the money, they pays me five. Two even, one time. I had to. I didn’t have enough for the subway. The night before, I’d been run in, beat up. I was really hurting, and I needed somethin’ for the pain, you know. But here, I get what I’m worth.” She held up the money a second time. “And I can use the bathroom after, freshen up, make myself look good for the next customer.”
    â€œThat’s not what I was thinking.”
    â€œNo?”
    â€œI was thinking that there’s a chance, just a chance, that he’s the one who killed Rosalinda and Mulrooney, and that you’re taking your life in your hands when you see him like this.”
    â€œIt couldn’t be him.”
    â€œWhy not?”
    â€œIt jus’ couldn’t.”
    â€œBecause—”
    â€œHe never hit me, not even once. He doesn’t have much of a temper. She lucky, his fiancée.”
    â€œYou never heard the expression, Revenge is a dish best served cold?”
    â€œWha’s that supposed to mean? That he did it? That he killed Rosalinda?”
    â€œNo. It means you don’t need a hot temper to murder someone.”
    â€œThat’s not how it is with us.” She was shaking her head so vigorously, Clint began to bark. “You shut up,” she told him. “You could wake the dead, that mouth of yours.”
    â€œSo how is it with you?”
    She looked exhausted. Even with all that makeup,