Blood Test Read Free

lot and I
pulled my hand away from the heat of the door handle. Midway through the motion
I sensed his presence and turned to face him.
    “S’cuse me, Doc.” He was looking into the sun and
squinting. His forehead was sweat-glossed and the canary-colored shirt had
darkened to mustard under the arms.
    “I can’t talk now, Mr. Moody.”
    “Just a sec, Doc. Just lemme connect with ya. Lemme
zero in on some main points. Communicate , you know.” His words came out
in a rush. As he spoke, the half-closed eyes darted back and forth, and he
rocked on his boot heels. In rapid succession he smiled, grimaced, bobbed his
head, scratched his Adam’s apple, and tweaked his nose. A discordant symphony
of tics and twitches. I’d never seen him this way but I’d read Larry Daschoff’s
report and had a good idea what was happening.
    “I’m sorry. Not now.” I looked around the lot but we
were alone. The rear of the court building faced a quiet side street in a
run-down neighborhood. The sole sign of life was a scrawny mutt nuzzling a
patch of overgrown grass on the other side of the road.
    “Aw, c’mon, Doc. Just lemme make a few main points,
lemme break on through, lemme zero in on the main facts, like the shysters say.”
His speech picked up velocity.
    I turned away from him and his hard brown hand closed
on my wrist.
    “Please let go, Mr. Moody,” I said with forced
patience. He smiled.
    “Hey, Doc, I jus wanna talk. State my case.”
    “There’s no case. I can’t do anything for you. Let go
of my arm.”
    He tightened his grip but no tension registered on his
face. It was a long face, sun-cured and leathery, with a broken pug nose at
center, a thin-lipped mouth, and an oversized jaw—the kind of mandibular
development you get from chewing tobacco or gritting your teeth.
    I put my car keys in my pocket and reached around to
pry his fingers loose but his strength was phenomenal. That, too, made sense,
if what I suspected was true. It felt like his hand had become heat-welded to
my arm and it was starting to hurt.
    I found myself assessing my chances in a fight: we
were the same height and probably just about the same weight. Years of hauling
lumber had given him an edge in the physical strength department, but I’d been
sufficiently diligent about karate practice to have a few good moves. I could
stomp down hard on his instep, hit him when he was off-balance, and drive away
as he writhed on the cement… I interrupted that train of thought, ashamed,
telling myself that fighting him would be absurd. The guy was disturbed and if
anyone should be able to defuse him, I should.
    I dropped my free arm and let it fall idly to my side.
    “Okay. I’ll listen to you. But first let go so I can
concentrate on what you have to say.”
    He thought about it for a second, then grinned
broadly. His teeth were bad and I wondered why I hadn’t noticed it during the
evaluation, but he’d been different then—morose and defeated, barely able to
open his mouth to speak.
    He released my wrist. The piece of sleeve where he’d
held me was grimy and warm.
    “I’m listening.”
    “Okay, okay, okay.” His head continued to bob. “Just
gotta connect with you, Doc, show you I got plans, tell you how she twisted you
roun’ her little finger jus’ like she did me. There’s bad stuff in that house,
my boys tell me how he’s makin’ the kids do things his way, and she lets it
happen, she says okay, okay. Fine and dandy with her, they be cleanin’ up after
a scumbag like that, who knows what kind of dirt he’s leavin’ around, the guy’s
not normal, you know? Him wantin’ to be man of the house and all that, all I
gotta say is har, har, you know.
    “Know why I’m laughin’, doc, huh? To keep from cryin’,
that’s why, keep from cryin’. For my babies. The boy and the girl. My boy tol’
me the two of them be sleeping together, him wantin’ to be the daddy, to be the
big shot in the house that I built with these two hands