Bad People Read Free Page B

powder, but even then—even though he’d bought the largest size—they were hard to get on. Now the talc had turned to a mealy slippery mess inside them. Is that how surgeons operated? Maybe he should’ve take a page from O.J.’s playbook and gone with leather gloves. Though that ultimately hadn’t worked out too well.
    A car came by, but the engine was too quiet to be Robb’s Infiniti Fx Sports Utility. It might have been the son Stephen-David’s Prius, but the car kept going, so it wasn’t. There must be a story behind the Prius, but Luke hadn’t discovered it. The mother’s Jetta was serviceable and in good condition, but certainly not as good as she could have; Robb’s Infiniti was not bad, but it was no Lexus. They lived in a large, but not palatial, home on a street with a lot of foreclosures, in a great, but not spectacular, neighborhood. They were just like the couples in “The Millionaire Next Door”: successful in business, prudent in lifestyle.
    An entrepreneur must take risks, but they must be calculated risks.
    None of this explained the Prius. Those were about twenty thousand, and trendy. True, as a hybrid, a Prius yielded a two thousand dollar tax break, or it had at one time, but even that was only in the year of purchase. The tax break for an SUV that could have been registered in the name of one of the businesses would have been much better—and ongoing.
    The baseball game ended on a bad call against Oakland. If Robb had stayed until the bitter end, and was only now filing out of the ballpark, he would be home in less than an hour. Safeco Field hadn’t had a sold-out game all season; I-5 would not be too much trouble this time of night. He might have left earlier. Luke would have.
    Luke heard Robb’s engine. Headlight beams splashed under the garage door. Robb hadn’t stayed for the whole game after all. The garage door cranked open. Robb’s Infiniti taxied into the garage.
    Luke waited, still in his crouch in the shadows, where, as he had foreseen, the worktable shielded him from the splash of lights. Robb cut the lights, and the engine. The garage door closed. The engine clacked as it cooled but Robb had not yet opened the car door. Luke heard Robb’s voice—muffled but forceful—from inside the cab, and his guts knotted, at the notion Robb might have somebody with him.
    Luke peered from the dark. He felt like Batman, Wolverine; fiery eyes burning in the night. Robb was alone, he was arguing with someone on his cell phone.
    Robb popped the door open, sounding dings and illuminating the overhead. Luke watched him snap the cell phone shut and throw it down. He’d parked very close to the wall and, as he moved to get out now, Robb pushed the door open with such force it seemed as if he didn’t even known there was the wall. “Fuck!” he shouted. “Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” he said, ramming the door against the wall three more times. He turned back to the steering wheel, put his head down on it, and breathed deeply. His breathing was interrupted by short, quick sobs. Luke shifted his weight. Robb was crying.
    Robb jerked up. “Who’s there?” he said.
    Luke waited.
    “Who is it?” Robb said again, his words slurred. Too much beer at the game.
    Robb pulled the door shut again, enough to extinguish the overhead light. Luke heard him fumble around inside the car. Luke worried Robb would reopen the garage door, turn the ignition, and back the Infiniti out. That would be the smart thing to do. He didn’t do that. Robb opened the car door again, stepped almost silently onto the pavement and close the door.
    Luke heard Robb feel and shuffle his way toward the house entrance. He stopped. Luke’s eyes had recovered enough from the headlights now; he could see the outlined figure of Robb. He was standing in front of the grill of the Infiniti. He faced the corner where Luke waited. Luke had planned to wait until Robb was opening the door into the kitchen, when his back would be turned, but