Absolute rage

2

Marlene sat on a wooden bench outside the little s outhold railroad station and stroked her dog's velvety ears as she waited for her husband's train to appear. Marlene was a Romantic, like many people who were highly religious in youth and are no longer so, and all Romantics love trains, even cheesy commuter trains. Although she knew her husband as well as she knew herself (better, if truth be told), she still wished for him to be ever a dark stranger. So, waiting in the gathering dusk, and nearly alone on the platform, she amused herself by striking different poses before her reflection in the glass of a trade-school advertisement while entertaining fantastic thoughts.

Such as getting on this train and staying on it to the end of the line and then back to the City, and staying on trains and getting off in strange cities, and staying in hotels, always second-class hotels near the station, and then boarding another train for another city, and living an anonymous life, and dying, finally, on the Orient Express. Marlene loved her family, of course, and the main attraction of this fantasy was that it would remove them all from the sphere of danger and catastrophe that she felt she dragged around with her. She had been lucky so far, but she understood that good luck builds up like an electrical charge and that at a certain point it sparks over into the bad kind. Although she now tried hard to be good, she believed that the pattern of her life almost demanded this result: that when confronted with certain kinds of situations-arrant injustice, for example, or certain forms of cruelty-she would make decisions and take actions leading to violence. She had personally killed three people and caused the death of several others, and while she hoped that this aspect of her life was over, she had no real confidence in a permanent escape.

She shook herself like her dog to put these thoughts aside and turned her attention to her business, humdrum thinking about accounts and vet fees and three-inch galvanized pipe and diesel pumps. She wished, really, that she were a struggling businesswoman supporting her children by honest labor and frugal housekeeping, but this was not the case. The kennel and training operation was a tax dodge. Marlene had made a great deal of money in the way that such money was often made in the midnineties, by being in the right place at the right time. She had been a partner in a security firm that had grown rapidly and gone public, and which had profited vastly from a spectacular rescue of a kidnapped client on the eve of its initial public offering. The stock went up and up, on its merits and on the publicity, and later as a refuge for the smart money when the dotcoms tanked. Marlene had, however, discovered that the spectacular rescue was a scam, although the people killed in it had been real enough, and had demanded a buyout, to which her partners reluctantly acquiesced. She assuaged her Godzilla of a conscience by giving almost all the money to the Church, stashed in a religious foundation. A Jesuit named Michael Dugan ran it for her, as Billy Ireland ran the dog farm. So she could slip away without anyone really noticing she was gone. The twins had each other, Karp had his work, Lucy had her fifty-seven languages. They would all sit down to dinner and wonder why there was no food. No, that was unfair to Lucy; she could cook as well as Marlene herself.

Idiot thoughts. Demonic ravings. She was a little crazy, too, tried to keep it under control, mostly a success, except when she drank. She shook herself again, and this time the dog took this as a cue to shake, too. Unlike his mistress, he sent long streamers of white drool in every direction. She stared at her reflection and made gargoyle faces, crossing her eyes. She could really cross them now that she had been fitted with the latest high-tech socket for the left one, which was fake. Now they tracked together, instead of, as before, the fugazy staring out motionless like the orb of a dead mackerel. Most people no longer thought she looked odd, which said something about the perceptions of most people.

She checked her watch, arose, and looked down the track, into the reddening west. Tiny twin balls of light hovered above the rails out at the limits of vision. It was rather nice having a little summer vacation from being married, she thought. Karp came only on the weekends, so it was almost like college dating again, except you knew the guy wouldn't be a complete asshole, assuming one's husband was not one and you still loved him. Hers was not, by and large, and she did, by and large, although she was not adverse to having an attractive stranger around on the weekdays. Not that she would ever do anything, knowing herself to be the kind of woman who, once unfaithful, would bring her whole life crashing down and end up penniless and drunk in a trailer park in Tempe, Arizona.

She sat down on the bench again. The dog hadn't moved, since she had down-stayed him and hadn't spoken the release. The dog would have stayed there had a butcher's cart overturned before him and strewn the platform with prime rib. Billy Ireland was a hell of a trainer. She smiled and cooed at the dog, who wagged his tail, but still didn't budge. The train pulled in and a woman and two men got off. One of these, very tall and broad-shouldered, carrying a canvas overnight bag, and dressed in a beautifully cut tropical-weight blue pinstripe, was her husband, Roger Karp, universally known as Butch. She watched him look up and down the platform. He saw her coming toward him with the huge dog at her heels, and she observed, first, how tired he seemed, his face gray and heavy with the City, and then how it lit up when he saw her. Oh, good! They embraced and kissed, not just a suburban-wife-at-station peck, but a real kiss with plenty of chewing, like teenagers. It was always something of a surprise to both of them that they were still interested although they had been married since the Carter administration.

They walked arm in arm to the truck. "So how was the week that was?" she asked.

"Don't ask." He settled himself in the passenger seat and waited as she let the dog into the back and got in behind the wheel.

"You look tired."

"You look great. You're tan. You've been lounging on the beach."

"Uh-huh. I met our neighbor there this afternoon. She's got a little girl the twins' age."

"Our neighbor? That old couple?"

"No, on the other side. In the big white house."

"I thought that was empty."

"Me, too, but she's opening it up. They're going to sell it. Her dad kicked off and there's some kind of inheritance tangle. I got her drunk and pried out her secrets. They're a fine old Long Island family fallen on hard times. A nice woman, though-Rose Wickham Heeney."

"Heeney?"

"Yeah, it doesn't go with the other names. Apparently she married a working stiff from Appalachia, which didn't fly too great with the folks."

"So you have a basis."

She gave him a sharp look. Karp's family was a sore point. "Yes, and not only that, there's something worrying her. She'll be talking away and then kind of freeze and look around for the kid, a little panic reaction."

"Well, you know how to pick 'em."

"I'm not getting involved. Meanwhile she's someone to talk to, and the little girl's a doll. GC is smitten."

"How are they?"

"Thriving. Zak has his rat gun and Billy to tag around after, Gianni is building sand castles of ever greater extent and complexity and he's farming up a storm. They stay out of each other's hair."

"And your felon?"

"My felon is fine, and I wish you wouldn't call him that. He did his jolt and he's a citizen now."

"Aren't there any girl dog trainers?"

"Women. Of course, but I haven't found anyone as good as Billy Ireland." She slowed the truck for the turn off Route 25. The sun had sunk at last into Queens and the world had turned pearly blue. She switched on the truck's lights. "You're just jealous. You think we're doing it on the kibble sacks."

"Are you?"

"Not on the kibble sacks. And again she asks, changing the subject, how was your week, darling?"

"Hot. It was over ninety all week and it's only June."

"I mean work."

A cloud came over his face. "Fine. The usual." Which meant, not fine. Unusually awful.

But he greeted the boys cheerfully enough when they ran out to mob him, and he seemed more relaxed, later, at the table, dressed in worn jeans and a T-shirt. The twins filled him in on the week's events, including a detailed description by Zak of the backhoe operation and of each of the four rats he had stalked and killed, and from Giancarlo, a long summary of the rules of a swords-and-sorcery fantasy game he had invented, and a crop report, corn and carrots, tomatoes, potatoes, lettuce. She noted, however, that Karp drank two beers, as much alcohol as she had seen him consume at one sitting, and that, try as he might, his attention was drifting.

"Zik has a girlfriend," announced Zak when they were clearing the table.

"I do not!"

"Yes, he does. She has red hair. He loves her." A snarling chase through the house, which Karp broke up by grabbing each boy under an arm and dragging them out to the porch, where he plopped the three of them down on the rusty glider.

"It's true," Zak insisted.

"Is it true, Giancarlo?"

"No. I have a friend and she's a girl, but she's not a girlfriend. I'm too young to have a girlfriend."

"I see. When had you planned to start?"

"When I'm sexually mature, Dad," said Giancarlo, which reduced his brother to choking giggles.

After this had subsided, Zak said, "Billy Ireland taught me how to drive the truck. I can put it in second."

"Really? Does your mom know about this?"

"Oh, you know-Mom knows everything."

Later, when the boys were in bed, Karp sat on this same glider with his wife, who was drinking Remy out of a juice glass. The night was humid and warm, but there was a comfortable salt breeze from the Sound. Crickets sawed away in the surrounding trees, invisible in the country dark, real darkness, which Karp always found disconcerting after the City's perpetual glow. They had turned off the lights in the house. Then a light appeared from the small window under the barn's eaves. It came from the small apartment occupied by the dog trainer.

Which reminded Karp. "What's this I hear about Ireland letting Zak drive the truck?"

"Oh, it's just on the property. He's thrilled about it. You know how he is."

"It's still dangerous."

Marlene shifted to look directly at him. "No, it's not, and you don't really think so, either. You're pissed off about something at work and you are about to start a wrangle to get your ya-ya's off at me."

"I'm not."

"Everything's perfect at the office?"

"Yeah, it's fine."

"Oh, bullshit!"

"Marlene, forget it. I'm just tired."

"What are you tired about? I thought you conquered crime up there. You're not a kid ADA running around Centre Street with fifty open cases. You have a nice office, a glamorous secretary, minions at your beck and call…"

"Marlene, be serious. I'm chief assistant district attorney of New York County. There are a lot of pressures…"

"Like what?"

"Nothing." Long pause. A release of breath. "Jack's calling me off the congressman."

Marlene raised her eyes to heaven and her palms upward. "Thank you!" And to him: "Why do I always have to worm it out of you?"

"Because it's my problem, okay? Why should I bring that shit home?"

"It's not your problem. It's our problem, because when you're pissed off at that fucking office, you snarl, and pick nits, and get on everyone's nerves. My nerves, to tell the truth. The boys are so glad to see you, you could whip them with coat hangers and they wouldn't mind. So give! What's with the congressman?"

Karp cleared his throat. His childhood memory did not recall a single scene in which his father had talked business with his mother, and despite the years he had lived with Marlene the process remained uncomfortable, unnatural.

"Well, you'll recall we had that election last year, and I think that's what's behind this. McBright got 48.6 percent of the vote against Jack, including nearly 80 percent of the nonwhite vote. The congressman campaigned very hard for McBright."

"Being a black guy himself."

"That is a racist comment and unworthy of you," said Karp primly. "I'm sure the congressman thought he was the better man for the job. However, that's the fact. Given the demographics of the City, in the future it will be very hard to win office in New York County conceding 80 percent of the nonwhite vote. Are you sure you want to hear this?"

"I'm riveted and would be even more so if you would tickle my head."

Karp started to massage his wife's scalp and continued. "Okay, this started with looking at dirty money uptown. The congressman naturally has a campaign fund. Many uptown notables and businesses contribute to this fund. Among the biggest contributors is a firm called Lenox Entertainment Enterprises. They own clubs and restaurants and movie houses, uptown mainly but also all over the City. The firm makes a corporate contribution, as do a large number of its employees, up to the personal max. This is hard money, by the way, right into the congressman's coffers. You wouldn't think that a guy who cleaned up a movie house after the show could afford to drop a grand on a political campaign, but it is so. And not just one, either."

"That's America, God bless her!" said Marlene. "Lower, please."

"Okay, shady campaign funding… not our problem, really. But it turns out that one of the partners in Lenox is a person named Waylin Pennant, aka Beemer Pennant. Or Pimp Pennant, as we like to call him. Who is definitely our problem. This campaign stuff is what tickled our interest, in fact."

"Gosh, Butch, if pimps can't give money to politicians, they'll have to shut down K Street. Or Texas."

"True, it's Mr. Pennant's right to support the candidate of his choice with money beaten out of whores. Pennant, by the way, is not just your average street Mac. He seems to have industrialized the process, like the Mob did back in the old days. Basically, he doesn't run girls himself-pimps pay him for territories, and he probably gets a rake-off out of most of the fleshly commerce in the City. And he does the usual loan-sharking and so on. No drugs, though. He's a smart cookie."

"Yes, I would stick to fleshly commerce myself, were I to go bad."

"Badder than you currently are, you mean."

"Yes. Were you thinking of taking me up to bed?"

"In a minute," said Karp. "You asked for this and you're going to get it. To resume. Beemer is a major bad guy. We've had some killings we like him for, not directly thus far, but people he had beefs with have tended to end up dead more than pure probability would allow. His vics aren't taxpayers, of course, but my position is, it's bad for our image if guys get to commit murder with impunity. It's against the law."

"I love it when you say that. It makes little shivers run up and down my thighs."

"Ditto," said Karp. "Now, we don't have much hope of nailing Pennant for the heavy stuff, but we figured he might be vulnerable to an Al Capone move. We assume he's laundering his dirty money through Lenox, so we look. We subpoena their books and… surprise, surprise. Lenox is not all that profitable, although it's extemely generous to its employees in the form of bonuses. Pennant is drawing only a modest salary from Lenox, not nearly enough to support his lifestyle. And he pays his taxes on it to the penny. So if pimp money goes into Lenox, it doesn't seem to come out, or at least not into Pennant's wallet."

Marlene finished her drink, slipped down, and rested her head on Karp's lap. He was now able to use both hands on her head and did. She sighed and closed her eyes.

"I'm putting you to sleep with this, right?"

"Oh, not at all. This is divine: head rub and complex criminal procedure. I'm in heaven. Go on-so how does he launder his pimp money if not through Lenox?"

"Okay, so we're looking hard at young Beemer, his associates, their businesses, et cetera, and we find Danila Wilson. Ms. Wilson is very close to Pennant; you might say she's an intimate associate of his. She owns and operates a publicity agency, Wilson, Lowery, Jones."

"A front?"

"Not at all. A legitimate agency, that does legitimate publicity. They have rap stars, and straight businesses, and artists. This is a high-class operation. But a nice chunk of their business, it turns out, is managing the congressman's public image and his campaigns. They print up the posters and do the TV commercials. And it's kind of funny because even though the congressman is in his twelfth term and regularly wins by thirty-point margins, he pays them a very large amount of money. Inordinate, you might even say."

"Like how much?"

"Oh, for this campaign, four point three mil."

"Got it," said Marlene. "The pimp money goes in as fake contributions from Pennant's smurfs and comes back out to him as overpayments to his girlfriend's company."

"You're really smart, Marlene. Do you think it has anything to do with me massaging your head all these years?"

"Maybe, maybe not, but I think it would be prudent to keep doing it. I'm thinking a state case is going to be hard to make."

"Yes, that was Jack's point. Obviously, the way you handle something like this is you grab up the little guys, hit them with a blizzard of charges. We'd go with first-degree falsifying business records, because of the intent to conceal another felony, which in this case would be the pimping operations, and, of course, the 470.10 money-laundering second degree, nice felonies, and we'd hope that they'd deal, roll the big guys, right up to Pennant and Wilson, and Soames.

"Who is…?"

"Sorry, Alonzo P. Soames, Soapy Soames-our congressman's campaign manager and main guy uptown. He actually writes the checks to Wilson and would obviously know the whole story."

"But…?"

"We have some likely little guys, people making just over min wage, who got five-figure bonuses, and paid it all into the campaign war chest. Phony on the face of it, and enough to warrant a search of the relevant paper-the campaign records, and Wilson's, but I've been told that's a nono. In writing. Basically Jack doesn't want to go up against that crowd right now. He thinks it would look like a vendetta against the people who supported his opponent. Especially with Ku Klux Karp as the lead agitator."

"They're still calling you that?"

"Not to my face, but it's well-known I'm this big racist," said Karp bitterly. "Jack adverts to it often in his subtle way. My own theory is that he wants me around mainly to keep the white vote in his pocket, one of the little ironies of my life. It goes to show you, once you're blackened, so to speak, in New York politics, that's all she wrote."

"So why don't you quit?"

"Marlene, don't start that again…"

She sat up abruptly and looked him in the face. "No, really. It's not like we need the money."

"What would I do? Conduct a practice devoted to defending us against dog-bite lawsuits?"

"That would be more fun than what you're doing now, although my dogs only bite people who deserve it. Besides, I'm a lawyer."

"You could've fooled me."

"Oh, don't get all spiky, again, for God's sake. We were just beginning to be cozy." She laid herself back again on his lap. "Okay, so then what are you going to do?"

"I don't know. Wait for something to turn up that Jack will have to move on. Leak to the press. Bluff. The usual, what I've been reduced to."

"What we should do is put the twins in boarding school and head for Europe."

He ignored this. "What irks me is that he really doesn't give a shit one way or the other about Pennant and the congressman. What he really wants is for me to admit that it's okay to screw around with cases for political advantage."

"So admit it," said Marlene sensibly. "It's true, isn't it?"

"Let's go to bed."

After a pause, she said, "Yes, let's. I assume you'll want to bother me with your disgusting lusts, as usual."

"Not at all. I got a very satisfying blow job from Big Albertine the transvestite on my way to Penn Station. I'm quite depleted."

"We'll see about that."

Karp was awakened just after dawn the next morning by gunfire. Bang. He jumped wildly out of bed. Bang bang.

And thumped his head against the narrow, sloping ceiling. Cursing and crouching, he went to the window, raised the roller shade, and peered down at the farmyard below, which was rose-gray and longshadowed in the early light. He saw in extreme foreshortening a wiry, yellow-haired man in a white T-shirt and jeans: Ireland, the trainer. One of the mastiffs stood by his left side. The dog was wearing a training harness and a long lead. Ireland led the dog slowly toward the chicken house. As they reached about ten feet from it, its door flung open violently and a man Karp had never seen before leaped out. He was big, unshaven, wore a dirty raincoat and a black cowboy hat, and had a small black pistol in his hand. He yelled something incomprehensible and fired two shots into the air. The mastiff barked and heaved against the lead as the man vanished back into the building. Ireland said something to the dog and walked away with it. A minute later the man came out of the chicken house carrying his hat and coat. Karp saw Marlene come into view and walk off with him. Some kind of dog test, Karp imagined. He knew nothing about dog training and had no interest in learning anything about it. He thought the dog farm a dubious enterprise, rich in possibilities for torts and tax trouble.

He showered and dressed in cutoffs and an old, faded Hawaiian shirt, a member of a large collection he owned, as it was the family joke to give him one every birthday. This one showed big, tan pineapples and green palm fronds against black. He went down to the kitchen, where he found coffee in the Braun and a box of doughnuts open on the table, together with the Times. Karp poured, selected a cinnamon, and sat down to peruse. The house was quiet except for the thudding of the elderly refrigerator. From outside he could hear faint sounds of barking, a boy's call, the distant rumble of a large engine.

The back screen door popped open and the unshaven man came in. He stopped short when he saw Karp.

"Oh, sorry. I didn't know anyone was here. Marlene said I could get some coffee and… "

"Help yourself," said Karp. The man did, and Karp was not pleased to see that he intended to take his coffee break at the table. He was a younger man than Karp had first thought, midtwenties at most, big and athletic, with a round face that the stubble made look older. After a short silence, Karp said, "And you are…?"

"Oh, sorry!" The man wiped powdered sugar off his hand and stuck it out. "Alex Russell. I'm the agitator."

"Excuse me?"

"The agitator. One of them."

"I caught your act from the window, with the pistol."

"Oh, yeah. That's the first test. If they won't stand up to an attack like that, you can forget training. Some of them pee and whine-I mean rotties, big Dobes. It's pathetic, really. But all of your dogs so far came through great."

"They're her dogs," said Karp in an undertone, and picked up his paper again in a way that suggested an end to the conversation. But Russell, sensing the void in the dog-training part of Karp's brain, and wishing to fill it, resumed. "Yeah, I never worked with mastiffs before. Great dogs. Billy's a great trainer, too, but I'll tell you, and you can ask anybody in the business, the agitator makes the dog. You mess up, you don't drop the sleeve just right, you're a little too aggressive with a beginner, you're a little too slack with a varminty dog, hell, you can totally throw him off. It's all in the timing. And the acting. I mean, you got to act like a slimeball, you know? I mean really feel like you're up to bad shit. The dogs can tell if you're not sincere. Hi, Marjorie."

Karp looked up as the screen door banged open again. A pretty woman of about thirty with a big mop of dark curls walked directly to the coffeemaker and poured herself a cup. She sat down in an empty chair and poured in cream and sugar. "That Jeb is a handful," she said.

Russell said, "I know it. I got bruises up and down my arm."

The woman seemed to notice Karp for the first time. "You're the husband."

"I am. Who are you?"

"Marjorie Rolfe."

"Don't tell me. You're an agitator, too."

"You can tell, huh?"

"Uh-huh. My first clue was that you're wearing quilted bib overalls made out of leather. Unless that's a fashion statement."

"Oh, no," she said straight-faced, "that's part of the gear. The dogs are trained to go for the arm. We got sleeves, you know, to protect the arm. But some of them get excited, especially if you're down and they could bite you someplace else. See, that's why we have to wear these scratch pants."

"I think I'm following you," said Karp, putting down his paper. "So this is how you guys make a living, as dog agitators?"

They both laughed. Karp saw that the woman had a canine tooth missing. "Heck, no," said Russell. "I mean we get paid good money by the hour, but it ain't no living. No, I work down at the Safeway. Marjorie's a groomer."

"And, what? You answered an ad?"

"Oh, no," said Marjorie cheerfully. "We know Billy from the NA at St. Malachy's. We're all three junkies together. Recovering junkies."

The other two started talking about dogs and cars and the various afflictions that arose in the marginal life, and Karp finished his Times browse and his coffee and went outside. The sun was up over the barn now and already warming the air. Karp had been out to the dog farm a number of times since Marlene had purchased it, but never before when dog training was going full blast. He had always wanted a summer place on the Island; they had spoken of it often when they had both been struggling ADAs, but Karp had imagined a little cottage in Quogue, not this sprawling, crumbling spread at the end of the North Fork. Nor the felon, nor the huge dogs, nor the junkies in the kitchen, either. On the other hand, if you were married to Marlene Ciampi, you had to expect a little louche in your life. Marlene was not a Quogue-cottage person.

On the other other hand, this feeling was real, the one he had nearly all the time, of things out of control, of impending disaster, of entering the scratchy borderlands of the crazy country, and it was not good, he did not want to live the rest of his life feeling this way. If work had been going well-that was another thing, that remark about how he should quit and do something else. Guys worked and supported their families, they did an honest day's work and took what shit they had to and put something away to send the kids to college and to retire on, that was what guys were for. It had never occurred to Karp that he would be in a situation where no sacrifice would be necessary. He had made a bundle once himself, working as a private litigator, but he had not liked it much, suing faceless enterprises or defending them. What was the point? Whereas when you stood up for the People, there was something real behind it. Or not, as it seemed recently. And now he could no longer see himself as a… martyr was too strong, he would never have said that, although he was in fact the kind of man who would take a bullet for a short list of causes, his family one, his friends, and a certain vision of what the law was meant to be, a vision that apparently was not broadly shared in his profession, and hardly at all within his own office. It was not like it was on the TV. So why get out of bed and go to work? To feed the kids to keep the wolf from the door. But the kids had trusts now, the college taken care of, the little nest egg afterward, and the wolf was…

Circular thoughts, sliding into obsession. He told himself to stop it. It was the weekend, take a break, Butch. Take the kids to the beach. Lie down and hang out. He had one of those fat fact-filled history books he read for pleasure, no beach thrillers for Karp, no, usually something like Norwich on Byzantium, or the rise of the Dutch Republic, or McPherson or Page Smith. Okay: book, beach, relax. Round up the gang, then.

He went into the barn, which was large, sagging, plank-built, painted crumbling white, and still smelled faintly of hay and its former tenants, with an added topnote of kibble and dog. It had a loft at one end, and at the other a flight of stairs leading to the trainer's apartment. Karp inspected the nursing Magog and her puppies. The bitch lifted her great head and gave him, the stranger, an unfriendly look and a coughing growl. Backing away, he heard a rustle from above and then a loud pop, followed by a cry from a boyish throat: "Got you!"

"Hello, who's up there?"

"Dad, I got another one!" In a moment Zak appeared at the edge of the loft high above, grinning and dangling a huge, dead rat by the tail. Karp took a step back to avoid a falling drop of rat gore.

"Do you want to go to the beach?"

"Maybe later. I want to hunt some more. This place is crawling with them." Zak dropped the dead animal, which fell with an unpleasant sound at Karp's feet.

"Do you have the safety on that thing?"

"It's automatic, Dad," said Zak, with a touch of patronage. "It goes on when you cock it." Zak placed the butt of the rifle against his knee and heaved the barrel down, then up with a smart click. He struck a Hemingway pose and pointed to the red tab sticking up from the foot of the breech. "See?"

Yet another thing to place in the worry file. The weapon was not, as Karp had once thought, a BB gun, but a Diana 34, a precision German weapon that could propel a.17-caliber pellet at a thousand feet per second and blow the brains out of a rat. Or child. The crazy wife had bought it for Zak's last birthday, and he loved it more than life.

"Well, just be careful," said Karp, and left the barn. He proceeded around the barn, where he found Marlene in consultation with a couple of contractors. Marlene gave him a friendly squeeze, but continued with her conversation, which was technical, boring, and presaged enormous expense.

After a few minutes of staring at the large rock that blocked the trench, he asked, "Where's Giancarlo?"

"In his garden."

Karp himself had never gardened, and as far as he knew, Marlene's vegetable expertise was limited to windowsill herbs and houseplants, but Giancarlo had decided to grow veggies on what seemed to his father an absurdly large scale. He had studied books on the subject and arranged for the rental of a rototiller and talked his brother into helping him break the soil for it. Then he had laid the garden out with mathematical precision, using stakes and strings, and had planted and watered and fertilized and weeded. Now the taut strings were nearly obscured by young growth. Karp had no idea what any of it was, although he thought he recognized young corn. They showed it a lot in the movies.

Giancarlo was in the field with a hoe. He was wearing bib overalls over bare skin, and on his head was a ragged straw hat, once Marlene's. When he saw Karp standing by the wire fence, he stopped, pulled off his hat, wiped his brow theatrically, looked up at the heavens, and said, "Paw, if it don't rain soon, we gonna lose the farm."

"Yes," said Karp, "we'll have to move to the city and live in miserable tenements, but someday your grandchildren will go to college. What're you doing?"

"Hoein'."

"I see you are. Why exactly does one hoe?"

"To rip out the weeds. You can use herbicides, too, but I don't like them. I like hoeing. It's hard work but it's also really like restful. You want to try it?"

"Sure, if you think I can."

"Well, I don't know, Dad, it's totally tricky." The boy grabbed up another hoe from a collection of tools lying by the fence. "You see, the metal part here, that goes down in the dirt, and the wood part, you hold in your hands."

"Met-al? Down?"

Giancarlo giggled. "Sorry, I guess I was going too fast for you there. See, you kind of chop down and then up and pull the weed out roots and all. You have to make sure you rotate your hips and always keep your eye on the weed. Follow through the weed." He demonstrated.

"Got it. Point me at some weeds."

It was restful, Karp found. After half an hour he had taken off his shirt and tied a bandanna around his head and was going down the row of feathery plants with a will, making the dirt fly. At first, his mind was full of the office, and he took out his several frustrations on the dandelions and plantains. Later on, however, these thoughts faded, and he became interested in the hoeing itself, how to lift the weed with a minimum of effort, how to keep a gentle rhythm going. At this stage it was very much like shooting baskets, he was thinking, and he briefly speculated that athletic prowess largely depended on the constant repetition of acts that were essentially as boring as pigshit. Both of the boys were reasonable athletes, but neither was as yet outstanding. They didn't seem impelled to practice in the way he had. Still, it was early for them. He had not pushed them at all yet. Should he? He hated the men he had observed who lived their athletic dreams out through their kids, and though his own athletic dreams had been more or less blasted, he had firmly resolved not to do this to them. He had himself been a high school all-American and a standout in college until he had screwed up his knee. The knee was an artificial one now, an emptiness there that worked well enough when it worked, as now. Gradually even these thoughts faded, replaced by mere sensation: the beat of the sun on his back, the shock of impact in his hands, and the dull burning of friction where he gripped the handle. Mindless work; what he needed.

After an unknowable interval, he stopped to stretch and saw that his wife was standing by the fence, staring at him in wonder.

"I never thought I'd see the day."

"Bring me little water, Sylvie," sang Karp.

"How did he talk you into it?"

"He promised me a quarter of the crop and a peck o' salt. I thought it was a pretty good deal."

"But now you're ready to go to the beach and have a picnic, which your wife has lovingly prepared, despite the urgencies of running a vast and complex enterprise. You look remarkably sexy as a peasant, by the way."

"Mistress like Ivan?" said Karp, throwing down his hoe and advancing on her all sweaty and filthy, and she shrieked and they had a little chase around the garden, while Giancarlo looked on with benign interest, like a faun.

At the beach, they found Rose Heeney and her daughter, and Marlene set up her blanket and establishment adjoining and made the introductions. The boys and Karp ran off to splash around. Marlene looked sympathetically at Lizzie, who was making a good show of pretending that she did not care and rolled her eyes at Rose. "Men!"

Rose's smile in return was weak, and her face showed more strain than it had the previous day. She said, "Lizzie, go off and play with the boys. They have a raft."

"I'd rather stay here."

"No, go. Build a castle, swim. Go ahead."

Lizzie took the hint and wandered off.

"Something wrong?" Marlene inquired.

"Oh… yes, as a matter of fact. Red called late last night. He came back from a meeting and found someone had shot Lady, our dog. She was dead in the yard. A big stupid mutt, loved everybody. Completely useless as a guard, of course. Dan used to say she was a reverse watchdog. She barked continuously until a burglar arrived and then she'd shut up and go lick his hand." Rose pulled her sunglasses off and stared out to the water. Marlene saw that her eyes were wet. "Stupid dog. I don't know how I'm going to tell Lizzie. She practically grew up with her."

"Do they think it was a burglar?"

"No. It was some evil son of a bitch working for Weames. Escalating the threat."

"Weames is…?"

"Lester Weames. Red's running against him for the union presidency. The Union of Mining Equipment Operators. Known as UMEO. It's a small outfit, basically covers strip mine operators in three or four states, very Appalachian and totally corrupt. Weames has been in there for eighteen years, screwing the workers and staying cozy with the mine operators."

"I thought they didn't allow that anymore. I thought the feds came in…"

"Well, you thought wrong," said Rose bitterly. "Southern West Virginia is not really that much a part of the US of A when you come down to it. Weames keeps the coal flowing, and the coal keeps the lights turned on and the Internet humming. Yeah, there've been investigations, but he's smart. He lives modestly and he's got a gang of loyalists around him who keep him clean. On the few occasions the feds picked up something, they threw them a couple of small fry and they went back inside the Beltway feeling they did a good day's work. The bottom line is nobody much cares, except Red."

"Will he win?"

"Oh, he might get the most votes. Red's real popular among the rank and file. But whether Weames will let him actually take office is a whole other story. His guys count the ballots. It would be better for Weames, though, if Red just forgot about it. That's been suggested in very strong terms."

"Threats?"

"Expressions of displeasure, yeah. Phone calls in the middle of the night. A dead skunk in the mailbox. Tires slashed. Now, Lady…" Rose sighed. "That's why I'm spending the summer here with Lizzie, instead of supporting him in McCullensburg, like a good wife. When they started to get rough, I discovered I was easily distinguishable from Mother Jones." A self-deprecating laugh here, but Marlene saw it was eating at her. "He's coming up here next weekend to try to talk me into coming back with him."

"Will he succeed?"

"Oh, I guess. I don't know. It's really confusing. A life of struggle and relative deprivation, that I can deal with. Dead dogs and death threats? I don't know if I can take it. It's a whole different thing, especially with kids."

"Uh-huh, I know what you mean."

Rose looked at her sharply. "Do you?"

"Oh, my, yes indeed," said Marlene fervently.