Robert Tanenbaum - Absolute rage

"Uh-huh. Unfortunately, that's not the way it works. Their play was to hold out for a deal before they ratted out George. But you're right, our case versus. Floyd could be a lot better. Did Weames come up at all?"

"I broached the subject. Funny expression on his face, like wheels were spinning. But what he said was Weames didn't have anything more to do with it than he did."

"Truer words were never spoken," said Karp. "How about that two grand in the brown envelope?"

"Never mentioned. But he contrasted me as quote 'one of us' with you, 'the Jew bastard.' I blamed you for everything."

"Right move. Okay, we've gone about as far with him as we can right now. Let's wait for the physical evidence to firm up and we'll see where we go from there. But my sense is that this is going to be settled when we find the payoff. That's the key."

After he got off the phone, Karp called the inn again and again found no answer. He walked out of the Burroughs Building and looked down the street. McCullensburg shut down early. The courthouse was dark, as were the Market Street businesses. Traffic was light. It had been a while since the catfish supper and he was hungry. In the middle distance golden arches gleamed. He walked a couple of blocks and went in. There he found three-quarters of his missing family.

He slid into the booth and snatched up the plastic movie-marketing toy in front of Giancarlo. "My monster!" he said, clutching it dramatically to his breast.

"Garcon!" Marlene called. "Encore de Happy Meal! They were whining for Micky D and they wore me down. I called you but you weren't in the office."

"I was fighting crime. And all of a sudden I realized that what I really wanted was not justice but a cheap plastic Disney figurine and a thin, tasteless burger."

"Dad, I have news for you," said Giancarlo. "You're a grown-up."

"No toy?"

"No. As a matter of fact, I think I'm outgrowing Happy Meals myself," said Giancarlo. "You can give it to Zak. He'll be ordering Happy Meals when he's forty-two."

The response to this from Zak was a quick knuckle to the ribs. Giancarlo flinched and yelped. "Dad! Zak punched me!"

"Yes," said Karp. "You abuse him verbally and he responds physically. A few minutes pass. Then you abuse him verbally and he responds physically. A few minutes pass. You abuse him verbally and he responds physically. Do you see a pattern here?"

"He's not supposed to hit me."

"No, and you're not supposed to insult him either." Karp handed back the toy. To his wife he said, "Have they been like this for long?"

"Only all day. I tried to drown them but they were too slippery. I heard about your big-boy day from Emmett. He came by after they sprung him. How's Lucy?"

"She seemed perfectly cool. Apparently the dog intervened before anything really nasty went down."

"Yes, that's what they're for," said Marlene. "In any case, dingdong the witch is dead. The bad guys are in custody. My work here is done."

"Planning on leaving?"

"I guess. It's not really fair to stick Billy with the whole burden."

"Oh, hell, Marlene, take a break! Have him hire some more people. You've got the money and the whole thing's just a tax dodge anyway."

"We can't leave now, Mom," Zak interjected. "Emmett promised to take me hunting. We're going to go hunting at night, Dad, with real shotguns and dogs."

"When I'm dead, you can go hunting at night, darling," said Marlene sweetly. "It's not just a tax dodge. It's a tax dodge I have a substantial emotional investment in. It's my profession. I'm good at it and I like it."

Karp sighed and slid out of the booth. "Whatever. Do what you like, you always do. I'm going to get a couple of Big Macs."

He had been hungry, he decided, after the first Mac had vanished, and it had made him unnecessarily cross. The boys had left for the McPlayground just outside. Giancarlo had done a drawing on the back of the place mat, made with the crayons supplied by the franchise. It was a typical Giancarlo product, monsters in extraterrestrial landscapes. Karp was no connoisseur, nor could he draw a straight line himself, but even to his eye his son's artwork was more sophisticated than he imagined was typical of ten-year-old boys. The crayoning was layered, smudged, and mixed to yield colors not in the Crayola box, and the line was vigorous and confident. Where did it come from? he wondered. Another disturbing miracle, like the languages. Zak seemed to be the one normal kid, if saying four words a day and wanting to shoot everything moving was normal. Karp felt Marlene's eyes. Around a wad of the second burger he said, "Sorry for snapping. Besides the brats, how was your day?"

"I worked on my tan. I hated three teenagers who showed up at the pool for their sleek limbs. I swore I would never wear a bikini again. I flirted with Trooper Blake and reneged on my swear about the bikinis on his unspoken advice. I arranged for the truck to be deposited at Buddy's Body and spent a good deal of time waiting for Buddy to get to where he could look at the damage and let me know how long it would take him to fix it. Buddy is a deliberate fellow, which I guess comes naturally when you weigh three-fifty. Have you noticed how many remarkably fat people there are in this town?"

Karp looked around the restaurant to confirm this. "Yes. Are you afraid it's catching?"

"Frankly? I am; it may be something in the air. Buddy was telling me about Alma Knox, whose Chevy he had right there in the shop. Alma got into a little fender bender out on Route 11 that squished the latch on the driver's-side door. Well, Alma could not actually slide across to the passenger door to exit the vehicle. They had to call fire and rescue to cut her out with the Jaws of Life. In any event, I got to sit in the shade of Buddy's Body for a good long time, drinking diet RC and occasionally easing my bladder, while the rich life of McCullensburg flowed around me. Buddy's junkyard is one of the places to see and be seen, it turns out. A parade of codgers, mainly guys with few teeth and tobacco stains on their stubble. Very polite gents, all retired miners looking for junk parts to keep their 1978 Pontiacs humming. Apparently they occasionally get a little bonus of some kind from the union pension fund, and they all just got one and were blowing it on Delco alternators. They weren't fat, though. Would you still love me if I weighed three hundred pounds?"

"Of course, dear."

"How incredibly sincerely you lie. You must be a lawyer. On the strength of that guarantee, however, I will risk another french fry." She chomped. "In any case, Buddy says it will take the better part of a week to fix the truck, and there's no point in leaving before then."

"Good. When you're tired of McCullensburg, you're tired of life. I assume that our daughter has not reappeared?"

"Oh, her! Speaking of my work being done, that's the one good thing about this whole adventure. I don't have to resign myself to having raised a sociosexual failure. I will have grandchildren before I get Alzheimer's. I will!"

"She's still with that Heeney kid, huh?" Karp grumbled. "What, you think that's serious?"

"I saw a couple of looks pass that would've melted plastic."

"From him you mean?"

"Mutual. They were sliding their limbs over one another in the pool like spawning grunion."

"And you approve of this?"

"Darling, he goes to MIT, plus I'm almost a hundred percent certain he's not a junkie and not HIV-positive. He doesn't belong to a cult, he doesn't pick his nose, he doesn't weigh three-fifty, and he has excellent table manners. What more could a mom ask?"

Karp had stopped listening at HIV-positive. Mental pictures he did not wish to entertain entered his mind. "Wait a minute, you think they're…"

"Fucking their brains out? I deeply and profoundly hope so. And about time, too."