Robert Tanenbaum - Absolute rage

That afternoon, Karp was standing in the shade of the barn, watching Ireland and Russell work another dog, a Doberman, on the spring lead. They were using a sleeve, a thickly padded device that Russell wore on his right arm. He was annoying the animal with a switch, and when the dog leaped at him, he allowed it to grab the sleeve and tear it off him. Russell then retreated out of sight and allowed the dog to chew up the sleeve for a while. The agitator had, of necessity, a sure sense of exactly how far the dog could lunge against the spring. Karp, watching, felt sorry for the dog, with whom he identified. He had been trained in very much the same way and was currently in a situation not unlike that of the plunging, snarling Doberman. After a number of such sessions, Ireland took the dog back to its cage and Russell walked over to Karp, sat down with his back against the barn, and lit a cigarette.

"So that's how it's done," Karp said. "Do you ever get bitten?"

"Me? Hell, no. Guys have been tore up pretty bad, if they don't know what they're doing. I seen a dog rip a guy's face off, once. Grabbed him on the cheek and whang! The whole thing, the whole half of his face, just come off like a fuckin' glove." He gestured with his cigarette. "You got company."

The dogs broke out their chorus as a battered, dark blue Jimmy with West Virginia plates rolled into the yard. Its left fender was pink with Bondo and its chrome was dented. A working stiff's car, Karp thought, and wondered if it was that way by design. Emmett Heeney was driving and looked uncomfortable, almost grim. The passengers were Rose Heeney and her daughter. They got out and Rose walked over to Karp.

"I realize you probably never wanted to see me again," she said, "but I had to come over and apologize."

Karp shrugged and put on a smile. "No problem. It happens."

"He doesn't know what he's saying," she added. "He's under a lot of stress."

"It's fine, Rose," Karp said, now becoming a little embarrassed himself. "You want to see Marlene? I think she was in the barn." Rose turned to go. "And I was just going to take the boys to the beach. If Lizzie wants to come…?"

Rose smiled a grateful assent. She entered the barn, with Lizzie running ahead, and stumbled on something. She paused to let her eyes adjust to the dimness. She was thinking, I am so good at this, and reflected on what a shame it was that pride could not really be taken in what was her one real skill: pretending not to be mortified, the kind of charm she had learned at her mommy's knee early, learning to lie about Mom and Dad not being available and charming the men who came about the bills one has when one is trying to keep up appearances without quite enough liquidity. She had thought that marrying a dragline operator from West Virginia, a man dedicated to the fight for justice, would have excused her permanently from mortification, but it had not proved to be the case. She had nearly stopped feeling sorry for herself-it was by now a routine, the famous Wickham shit-eating grin, a little ladida toss of the head, crude to be angry with such a one, right? And by extension with the one who had done the damage, broken the window or the jaw-although she still felt for the children, not Emmett so much, but for Dan; Lizzie was starting to be old enough to understand, too.

The dogs were barking and she had to call out. Marlene appeared out of the gloom, wiping her hands on a towel. She shouted at the dogs to shut up, which they did. Rose went into her cringe. Marlene ignored it and said, "Want a beer? I'm having one."

They went into the kitchen. Rose declined the beer, accepted an iced tea. Marlene said, "Well, that wasn't the worst party I ever went to. No one got shot and we didn't even have to call the cops. Or an ambulance. I expect you've been in situations where there were both."

Rose felt herself blush. She nodded. "Yes. He's famous in McCullensburg for it. I'm sorry. I thought, well, away from home… a civilized little gathering." She looked up at Marlene and found a colder face than she had expected.

"You're not angry at me, are you?"

"I don't know yet. Let me ask you straight: Do you know me?"

"Know you…?"

"Yeah. Do you know who I am? What I used to do? I mean, is this hanging around me you've been doing, cultivating me and so on, connected with what went on last night? You're not looking for a little help, are you? In your domestic situation, I mean."

As soon as Marlene said this, she saw from the confused and shocked expression on Rose Heeney's face that she had been off base and felt a flash of shame.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Rose exclaimed. "You think I need a… whatever you are, a private detective?"

"Not as such… calm down, Rose. Sit down and finish your tea. Okay, I was out of line and I apologize. It's just that I used to have a business-actually according to my husband, it was more of a crusade-in which I… um… discouraged guys from beating up on their wives."

"Discouraged? You mean like counseling?"

"In a manner of speaking. It was an extremely firm kind of counseling. Tough love on steroids." A blank look. "Not to put too fine a point on it, along with several accomplices, I beat them up. On several occasions I had to shoot them, or trained the women in question to shoot them, and they did."

"You mean… dead?"

"On several occasions. The point of which is that I have a rep that's still alive in the City, and of course I forgot you don't come from the City. But anyhow, from time to time, a woman drifts into my life and inveigles me into an acquaintance in the hopes that I will fix her domestic situation."

"And you thought… I mean, that I wanted you to fix Red?"

"Yeah. So sue me, I'm a little paranoid."

Rose was staring at her, wide-eyed. Then she made a couple of preparatory snorting noises and burst into laughter. After a startled moment, Marlene joined in.

"They don't," Rose got out amid the guffaws, "they don't have that kind of service in McCullensburg, but if you ever wanted to open a branch office… oh, my!"

"Yes, well, easy for you to laugh," said Marlene after they had descended to chuckles. "It's no fun turning off the desperate. But you can see where…"

"Oh, sure, I understand. But the fact is, even though he acts like a big redneck bully, he loves me and the kids and there's never been anything remotely violent between us, with the exception of subduing him when he gets out of hand, like you saw. Do I wish he didn't do it? Yes, of course, but we have a good marriage and there are worse things, which I probably don't have to tell you. As a matter of fact, by McCullensburg standards, he's a sensitive New Age man."

"What's so funny?" said Dan Heeney, coming in from the next room. Marlene had started him on the farm accounts, which were in a fearful mess, and he had fallen into the concentration stupor of the computer jockey, tweaking files and exploring the old Macintosh, until the noise of the two women brought him back to earth.

"Oh, Dan, you're here," said his mother, arranging her face from hysterical back into the familiar lineaments of Mom. "Can you spare a minute? We need to discuss something."

"The answer is no," he replied, his face sullen.

Rose said sharply, "Dan!" and then got up and said to Marlene, "Oh, God, I'm sorry, you've had enough of the Heeney family business. We'll talk outside." She went through the screen door, and after a moment's hesitation, Dan said something nasty under his breath and followed her out.

Marlene sat there, quite happy not to be involved. A little guilty, but she could live with it. She stood, intending a little discreet eavesdropping, but sat again and took a swallow of beer. She rubbed the cold can against her forehead and listened to the refrigerator clunk.