Housebreaking Read Free Page A

Leonard’s goods to the checkout line and placed them on the conveyor belt. Leonard began fishing in his wallet for some cash.
    â€œShe doesn’t get out of the house very often,” said Dick Funkhouser.“She always speaks fondly of you.” He produced a pen and scribbled something onto a scrap of paper. Leonard pulled his reading glasses out of his breast pocket and examined the note: a phone number.
    â€œShe’d love to have dinner or see a show. You should call her.”
    Leonard tucked the slip of paper into his pocket. Why would he call Terri Funkhouser? He hardly knew her. The woman hadn’t been a regular presence at the country club or synagogue. Dick Senior had once complained that his wife would rather stay home with a bottle of sherry than go to the Met. She has low tastes , he had confided.
    â€œAre you a member of the club?” asked Leonard.
    â€œI’m not much of an athlete,” said Dick Funkhouser.
    â€œI see.” Leonard remembered now. The son had resigned from the club following the scandal at Funkhouser’s Dry Cleaning. After Dick Senior died, the son had ruined the business on bad loans, second mortgages, tax evasions. A shame, that sort of financial mismanagement. Dick Senior had put his life into dry cleaning.
    â€œLet me take the groceries out to your car.”
    Leonard shook his head. “I’m fine. I’m fine.”
    Back at the house, he carried the brown bags up the front steps. Benjamin met him at the door. He looked puffy-eyed but otherwise his same boyish self, curly-haired, fit, more handsome than his dad ever was. The girls had always gone wild for Benjamin, as far back as junior high school. Fonzie, some of the gals called him then, on account of the resemblance.
    â€œI’ve got Danish,” he told his son.
    * * *
    AFTER BREAKFAST a car horn blared from the street. Benjamin looked out the kitchen window and saw the familiar red pickup truck pull into the driveway; MARIANI LANDSCAPING , read the faded letters on the side. Two men got out, slamming the doors.
    â€œWho’s that?” said Leonard, peering over Benjamin’s shoulder.
    â€œNo one.”
    â€œAre those Judy’s brothers? Why are they honking the horn? It’s a Sunday morning, for goodness’ sake.”
    â€œI’ll take care of it.”
    Benjamin went out the front door in his socks. “What’s up, guys?”
    Anthony, the youngest of the three brothers, glanced at him and wentaround to the back of the truck and pulled down the tailgate. There was a third brother, currently under house arrest on a DUI charge. In the winter they did snowplowing, and sometimes Lou worked maintenance for a guitar factory in New Hartford.
    Anthony pulled a set of golf clubs from the bed of the truck and dumped the bag onto the lawn. A couple of yellow Titleists rolled out of the bag toward his dad’s Japanese maple.
    â€œHere’s all your shit. Special delivery.”
    The truck smelled of gasoline and grass clippings. Benjamin peered into the back, seeing a jumble of clothes, luggage, skis, books, DVDs, Rollerblades. Actually, those were his son’s Rollerblades. Judy must have gotten confused in her frenzy. He could picture her rifling through the closets in the basement and attic, plucking his possessions from the wreckage of their marriage. How exhilarated she must have felt, purifying herself of him. She’d always liked throwing things out. He noticed random clutter as well. Board games. A black-and-white TV with a broken antenna. Even some of her old clothes. He recognized a French maid’s costume, a Valentine’s gift from years ago. The brothers tossed it all onto the lawn, a showering of his worldly possessions, old and new. His Matrix trilogy hit the grass, and one of the DVDs slipped out of its case and rolled toward the street.
    So this was payback.
    He had played nice with the brothers all these years, sharing beers