Ridley Pearson - The Angel Maker

"Chinese, Vietnamese, Thai? You name it."

"Fish and chips," he suggested. "Too fattening." "You said I could name it."

"I lied." She patted her belly. "How about sushi?"

"Where's your wallet?"

"The front hall I think."

"Make it a big order.

I'm starved, and that stuff never stays with me."

"And get some beer, would you?"

While Boldt was gone, Liz had put Miles to sleep. When they finished eating, Boldt caught her hand and led her out to the living room where he sat her down. It was after nine. "The IRS shut down The joke last night. Confiscated all the books." "The IRS? So that's what's bothering you."

"They want to talk to us."

Disbelief came over her eyes. "Us? Oh, God, I hope they don't know about the cash income."

"I don't see what else it could be."

"Oh, shit. I signed that return."

"We both signed the return."

"But cash? Cash under the table?

How could they …? Goddamn that Bear Berenson. He must have tried to deduct it. Damn it all. You realize the penalty we'll face? Oh, my God. — "And The joke is closed down. I can look around for other work, but no one's going to pay me like Bear did."

"Oh, God. You realize the penalty? I wonder if they can send you to jail for something like this."

"Money's all they want. It's all anybody wants."

"But that's just the point!

What money? Every available cent we have is going to pay off the hospital."

Boldt didn't want her thinking about this. He glanced back toward the room where Miles now slept and remembered the complications of his delivery as if it had been yesterday. Would he ever forget that night? Could any price tag be put on having them both alive? "We'll manage."

"Manage? You don't do the books. I do. We won't manage, that's just the point. We need that income. Are they going to audit us? Is that what you mean? Oh, God, I don't believe this."

He hated himself for manipulating her like this, for doing to her what in her own way Daphne had done to him, but on this subject Liz had Special Handling written all over her. "I heard an awful story today about a girl named Cindy Chapman."

"They nail you for unreported income, you know. You know that, don't you?" "She's a sixteen-year-old runaway."

As he had hoped, Liz momentarily forgot about the IRS. "What are you talking about?"

"They stole her kidney," Boldt explained.

"Who did?" she gasped. "Worse than that: She hemorrhaged. She almost died. Sixteen-years old," he repeated.

"Lou?" There it was, that flicker of recognition he had been expecting, but dreading. "If I go active again, I'm eligible for a loan through the credit union."

Her eyes grew sad and then found his. She didn't speak, just stared. Boldt said, "We'd have to juggle Miles. I realize that. Maybe day care," he said tentatively, expecting an eruption.

Instead, she turned a ghastly pale. She rose, her back to him, and walked into their bedroom. She shut the door behind her, closing him out. He loved this woman. Her sense of humor. Her courage. The way she laughed when it was least expected. The way she reached into the shower to test the temperature. Little things, all of them important. The way she hummed to herself when she didn't know he could hear. Her sense of organization. The silly presents she would show up with on no particular occasion. Her pursuit of pleasure. The way she made love when she was really happy.

He could hear the radio through the closed door. The news. The weather. More rain. They couldn't take any more rain. The flooding was as bad as it had ever been. Suicide rate was up: bungie jumping off Aurora Bridge, without the bungie cords.

He looked around for something to do. Lately, Miles, this woman, and The Big joke had been his whole life. Now he found himself thinking about Cindy Chapman and Daphne Matthews.

Maybe he'd try to talk her into this in the morning. Maybe he would admit to a promise already made. Maybe Cindy Chapman was an isolated case. Maybe there wasn't some guy out there carving up runaways after all. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

He went to the bedroom door and opened it cautiously. "Mind if I join you?"

She was on the bed, her jeans unbuttoned. She shrugged. "More rain," she said, as if nothing had come before. "Yeah, I heard."

She patted the comforter beside her. He knew that look.

Forgiving. Cautiously optimistic. He loved her for it.

Boldt stepped inside, kicking off his shoes, and shut the door.

A hundred yards down the dark, narrow, overgrown lane, Elden Tegg encountered a truck blocking his way. A huge man with an untrimmed beard asked him his name 'checked his driver's license, consulted a list, and finally backed out of the way, allowing him to pass.

He drove under a canopy formed by the limbs of trees. The road was all mud and leaves. He parked the Trooper amid a group of battered pickup trucks and hurried through the rain toward the large barn. A yellow light escaped the slats in the wood. He pulled open the door and stepped inside.

He smelled cigarettes, hay, manure and musty, rotting wood. He smelled a metallic, salty odor as well, one that as a veterinarian he knew only too well: animal blood. He stepped into shadow and studied the scene before him.

The fighting ring, a wooden box ten-feet square, had been hastily constructed out of gray barn wood. It occupied an area in the middle of the wide dirt aisle between the stalls. A hayloft, cloaked in darkness, loomed above them. The building's only light came from a single bare bulb suspended directly above the center of the ring. It cast harsh shadows on the rough faces of the nearly twenty men in attendance.

This scene repulsed him. Pitting dogs to the death. He repaired life; he did not waste it.

A head in the crowd turned and faced him. The same man from earlier in the day, Donnie Maybeck. His gold Rolex winked at Tegg as it caught the light. He approached Tegg with an exaggerated stride. He smiled, flashing his ragged gray-brown teeth at Tegg like an old whore lifting her skirt at a would-be John. "Are we set?" Tegg asked. "Everything's cool." He indicated the loft with a nod. "But before we get to that, we gotta do Felix."

Spurred by an act of local government that amounted to canine genocide for all pit bulls, Tegg had rescued Felix and others from certain death in favor of lives devoted to science and research. These dogs-his creations, in a way-were now hidden out at Tegg's farm, where he maintained a surgical research laboratory. As much as Tegg hated the idea, the only way to fully test the success of the latest surgery was to fight this dog in the ring. Although Maybeck had assured him that there was always someone "competent" on hand to sew up any inflicted wounds-a so-called needle man-Tegg did not want anybody else doctoring the dog. Besides, he thought, this dog's insides would only confuse another vet, and raise suspicions about Tegg's practices. "I'm not here to fight him, only to provide medical attention if he needs it," Tegg reminded. "He's up next," Maybeck explained. "Up against Stormin' Norman. You understand. Norman ain't lost no fight in six go's. But I'm gonna need your help, Doc. You're the only one can handle him."

"Where is he?" Tegg asked. Donnie Maybeck led him to a cream-colored airline travel cage perched high on a hay bale. The animal inside bared its razor-sharp teeth and growled ferociously at Donnie, who grinned back with his own ragged teeth, pressing his face close to the grid of bars on the door, teasing the dog with a growl. The pit bull charged the door so strongly that the cage nearly slid off the bale. "Don't taunt him," Tegg protested. At the sound of Tegg's voice, the dog's behavior reversed. It quieted and pushed its wet nose tightly into the bars of the cage toward Tegg. "See? This here is your dog, Doe. You're the one who saved him-and he knows it. You gotta help me do this."