Absolute rage

3

Daniel Heeney, running late, took the last open seat in the car. The westbound Amtrak out of Boston's South Station was full with a weekend crowd. As he sat, he glanced at the girl sitting across the aisle from him in the way most young men glance at girls on public transportation, in quick appraisal, and the first thing he took in were the legs. They were long, extremely long, too long for Amtrak's mingy accommodations, and she had to park a dozen inches or so of them in the aisle. They were well shaped, too, with slender ankles and bare, all the way from her leather sandals right up to where they vanished into baggy khaki shorts. When people moved past in the aisle, she hiked her knees high, presenting him with an appealing glimpse into the shadowed higher reaches. The rest of her was not so appealing, however. Homely, was his first take. Very short hair, nearly a buzz cut, a big nose, too. She was wearing a black T-shirt with some kind of red design on it, and it hung loose in front. A shame, he thought, nice legs, no tits, and that face. He pulled a physics text and a yellow highlighter out of his pack and began to study.

When the train stopped at Providence, he became aware of a low muttering coming from across the aisle and he looked up from his book. The girl had equipped herself with a set of headphones, hooked into a tape player sitting on the tray table. The phones were not the flimsy kind that come with tape players, but big, padded Bose jobs with a tiny red LED glowing on the side, which indicated to his experienced eye that they had sound-damping electronics built in. At first he thought she was voicing the words to a song, in the annoying way some people did while using earphones, but as he observed her, it became clear that something else was going on. She had a notebook out and she was writing rapidly in it, occasionally stopping to reverse the tape and repeat a section. Her mumbles seemed to be in a foreign language. Listening to a taped lecture, he thought. And a foreign student, too, probably. The train started again and her mumbling faded against the ambient sounds of the train.

When study at last paled, his gaze moved again from his text to the girl. She had a fat volume on the tray now; it looked like a dictionary. One of her legs was thrown up over the arm of her chair, her sandal hanging loosely on her toes, moving slowly with the motion, like a plumb bob. She seemed completely at ease, oblivious to her surroundings. There was something erotic about studying her he found, like spying through a dorm window. He liked the way the armrest dug into the meat of her thigh, exposing its tender inner skin. The shorts were so baggy, he could see almost up to her crotch. His eyelids twitched with the strain of peripheral visioning.

She looked up just then and he flicked his glance back to physics, to a page of equations whose meaning he had quite forgotten. He felt stared at, and his ears reddened. A minute or so later, he got up and went to the lavatory. His face in the spotted mirror looked even less attractive to him than it usually did. Dan Heeney owned the visage of a rococo cherub: milky skin, red-rose mouth, silky golden curls, the sort of face that was entirely out of fashion in an age that preferred the dangerous, hard-bitten, stubbled look. Although he had found that a certain kind of woman doted on such a face as his, he did not dote in return upon that kind. They reminded him of his mom. He had a taste for the crazy ladies, with the piercings and the spiked hair, but by and large they did not have a taste for him.

He finished, flung open the door, and almost walked right into her. She looked him full in the eye for an instant, made a polite noise, moved past and through to the next car. In the brief encounter, he had time to notice that the geometry of her face changed when seen full on, its strong planes snapping into a configuration that might with justice be called interesting or exotic rather than homely, more like the faces of the women who get to be stars in foreign films. Her mouth was wide, with full, slightly everted lips that seemed to balance the prow of the nose. Mainly he noticed the eyes. They were the palest possible brown, with yellow lights in them, just the color of cigarette tobacco.

These observations flashed through his mind in a moment and stimulated only the faintest curiosity, and little interest. She was, after all, just a face on the train, probably going to New York or D.C., probably a foreigner. He went back to his book and to the Fitzgerald contraction, its fascinating mathematics and its cosmological implications, none of which had to do with girls on trains, unless they were traveling at speeds approaching c.

But she was not going to the City, it turned out. She got off at New London as he did and took the shuttle to the ferry dock, boarding the Sea Jet along with him. He took a window seat, where he watched the shining Sound bounce along for forty-five minutes, his mind occupied with the various fears and hopes attendant on a family reunion in a family with some history of discord, and recent additional stress. Still, he was oddly aware of her presence on the craft, like an itching spot on his spine just beyond reach.

When the hydrofoil docked at Orient Point, Long Island, he found himself a few feet behind her, amid the crowd of debarking passengers, moving with their luggage to cabs and other vehicles jockeying into the curb. She had a soft cloth suitcase at her feet, and a military bag hung off one thin shoulder. The design on her shirt he now saw was Chinese calligraphy. He thought, I should ask her what it means, or make something up. You will meet a redheaded stranger who will change your life. The foreignness put him off, however. What if she spoke broken English, or none at all? No, she had a Boston College button on that bag, so a student there, so she had to speak English. Him being MIT would impress a BC girl. Or maybe not, given the nerdy rep. What was a foreign girl doing at the tail of Long Island on a summer weekend? An au pair, maybe, or an exchange student. He would never know, unless she happened to drop something and he picked it up. Maybe she would take the bus to Southold, in which case he would grab a seat next to her and say something. Maybe she was European, lonely, of casual European morals, looking for love…

In the meantime he stared at the legs, at the way she stood on one of them and slowly rubbed the crown of her foot against the back of her calf. He rehearsed pickup lines. Come here often? What's your major? Are you Polish? French? I couldn't help noticing your… I couldn't help noticing your legs. Do you think you would ever let me chew on them, like you do on a spicy Buffalo wing?

Too late. A red pickup truck had honked from across the street. In the back of the truck were two boys waving and shouting, and also an immense, black, slavering dog. Two women were in the cab. The girl waved, grabbed her bag, ran across to the driver's side, spoke briefly to the driver, and then jumped up into the bed of the truck. Which oddly enough did not move away, but honked again. He looked up. The woman in the passenger seat was calling his name and waving. To his immense surprise (together with a little jolt of pleasure, which followed soon after) he recognized his mother. He crossed the street, where he observed that his sister, Lizzie, was also sitting in the front seat. A quick kiss, a brief explanation, and he found himself in the rear of the truck, being drooled on by the dog, with his knees within inches of hers. The boys stared at him shamelessly. Twins, he noted.

"Small world," he said.

She grinned, showing small, even white teeth. "That's what they say." She stuck out her hand. "Lucy Karp. These three are Zak, Giancarlo, and Gog."

"Gog is the dog," said Giancarlo. "You can tell him from Zak because Zak doesn't drool as much." A brief flurry of friendly punches and nuggies, to which Lucy put an authoritative, physical halt.

"They know they're not supposed to do that in the truck," she said, sitting again. "Who are you, by the way? I saw you on the train and the ferry."

"Did you think I was following you with evil intent?"

"No. You don't look like the following kind. Or evil."

This was said in a flat tone that did not invite banter. Deflated a little, Dan introduced himself, and they spent the rest of the short trip exchanging information. After the usual school and job stuff, he asked, "What were you doing with the headphones on the train?"

"Translating. A speech by the Polish finance minister into French."

"You can translate Polish into French?" he asked, not keeping amazement from his tone.

"Yes, and if you think that's impressive, I can also crack my toes." She demonstrated.

"No, really…"

"She can speak fifty-seven languages," said Giancarlo.

"My agent," she said. "And a lie." To the boy: "How's the garden coming?"

The boy told her, at length, interrupted from time to time by interjections from his brother on the subject of suppressing vermin.

From time to time she looked at Dan, to draw him into the family chatter, but not too far. A strange bird was his thought. Clearly some kind of genius but diffident about it, used to keeping it under wraps. He wondered what the real girl was like.

"Ah, the ancestral mansion," Dan exclaimed as they pulled into the drive. It was a large, two-story, brick house, painted white long ago, with the brick underneath showing pinkly through. The paint on the green shutters was peeling off in strips, and the lawn was high and ragged. Weeds thrust up from the gravel drive.

"Your ancestors need a lawn mower," Lucy said.

"My ancestors have gone to their ancestors, leaving debts and not much else. The place is in hock. My mom has the use of it for her lifetime, if she can pay the taxes and maintenance, which she can't, so it's up for sale."

Everyone left the truck and there were more introductions. Rose Heeney led them all around the side of the house and into a huge kitchen, where she served out sodas and iced tea to all. Rose announced that her husband and her elder son were coming in that Friday, and she invited the Karps to join them in a beach cookout.

"Why not," agreed Marlene. "Butch will be here, too. You'll get to meet him."

At this juncture, Giancarlo, who had wandered out, came back in and asked, "How come you have no furniture? Are you moving in?"

"Out, I'm afraid, dear," said Rose. "We have to entertain in the kitchen like the peasantry. It's the only inhabitable room in the house besides the bedrooms." The furnishings in the remainder, she explained, had all been sold off or taken by Rose and her brothers after their parents' death. "It's terribly Dickensian, or maybe Chekhovian, I don't know which. The decay of a distinguished old family. The Wickhams settled here in 1741." She added to Marlene, "I'm sure you'll want to hear all about them."

"You will even if you don't," said Dan.

"That's his father talking," Rose said. "I'm not allowed to be a bourgeois oppressor of the poor even for one tiny instant."

An uncomfortable pause here, which Marlene ended with a remark about how pretty the house was, after which Rose suggested a tour. Dan said to Lucy, "I'll show you around the grounds. It's included in the package. You also get a brochure printed on recycled paper and a handy souvenir key chain."

"Keep an eye on the children," said Marlene, "and take Gog," at which Lucy made a mumbled agreement and said, "Let's go, brats!"

Lucy and Dan left the house through the empty front rooms, preceded by the three children running with the dog, their footsteps echoing loud on the hardwood. They walked across the sketchy lawn to a low stone pumphouse. The boys and Lizzie ran into it and emerged with scraps of lath, pirate swords. Dueling and shouting, they ran off toward the dunes.

"Now this pumphouse is where George Washington and John Adams planned the American Revolution," said Dan.

"Really? Gosh, it doesn't look big enough."

"Yeah, it fooled the redcoats, too. This is the place. We used to have a plaque but the birds got to it. And I believe this"-here Dan kicked at a weathered butt-"is one of the cigarettes Jefferson smoked while he was writing the Declaration. Our home is indeed rich in history."

"I'll say! Why, compared to your ancientness, my family is just off the boat. And those dunes! Why they look just like the ones Columbus landed on… but… but, that's impossible."

"No, those are the very ones," said Dan in a plummy voice. "Let's explore among them. Who knows? Maybe we can find important artifacts of white imperialist hegemony."

They went up through the line of low dunes and sat down with their backs against the warm sand. Below, the three children raced in circles with the dog. Their screaming came back in snatches on the sea wind. They goofed some more about historical obsessions, about the scene in Boston, about their school life. Lucy mentioned that she had often been at MIT.

"Taking courses?" he asked.

"Oh, right-I can barely do fractions. No, I have sort of a job with the computational linguistics people. They pay me to inspect my brain."

"You're kidding."

She had an urge to say yes. She did not want to interrupt in any way this unexpected pleasure, sitting here on the dunes with a luscious boy who did not seem afraid of her-not of her height or of her face or of her other peculiarities. Of course, he did not know about those yet. For an instant, she was aware of an intense desire to be someone else, before she said, "No, I'm not. I'm a language prodigy. My brain is a national resource."

"Like the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge?"

"Except smaller. What kind of prodigy are you?"

"Oh, you know, the usual MIT crap-grades, boards, Intel Scholarship. Except I come from West Virginia and I'm not Asian." A little bitterness here, she thought. She didn't know anything about West Virginia. Coal? Hillbillies? That song. It must not have been fun growing up a nerdy, pretty boy in a rural high school.

"So… are you going back to Boston?" she asked.

"I don't know. I have a job up there if I want it, you know what I mean, just computer shit, but it pays. I kind of like the idea of kicking back here for a while. I mean I've been working my butt off this year."

That was interesting, she thought: his accent was drifting from middle American to something more regional. This yee-a. Y'know whut a mean. He's relaxing a hair.

She said, "So? Kick back."

"Can't do it. I need the money. And if I'm not working, he's going to want me to go back home. My father." Dan looked blankly out at the Sound. "We all have to support the struggles of the working folks."

"You sound doubtful."

"Do I? I was raised in the faith, but it's hard to keep on believing in it nowadays. Or anything. I guess I still do. Have you ever been in southern West Virginia? The Kanawha? No, nobody has. Everyone uses the stuff they make there, plastics and chemicals, and all kinds of toxic shit, and we all use electricity from the coal, and we don't think about the poor bastards who have to live there and make it and breathe it in and taste it in their water every day, and dig out the coal while their houses get slowly demolished around them from the blasting. It sucks, yeah, and we ought to do something to change it. But…"

More interesting, she thought. The accent reverts to mid-American when he goes into speech mode, plus something else. A little roll in the r. Irish?

They both listened to the wind for a long moment, and the calls of the children.

"But, what I like to do is to hang out with smart people in Boston, and do science."

"And feel guilty," she said.

He turned to look at her, frowning, and saw from her eyes that she was not needling him, or mocking him, but just reflecting what was in his own mind. It was faintly irritating nonetheless.

"Jesus, I don't know why I'm talking like this. I just met you. You don't need to hear all this crap."

"No, we could talk about celebrities, instead." She pitched her voice up and added a slight Valley drawl. "I think Jennifer Lopez is like totally cool. Or sports. How about those Sox!"

He laughed and she joined him. She had a throaty, full-belly laugh that he found surprising in a skinny girl, but pleasant.

"Okay, deep and serious-so what do you believe in?"

Oh, well, Lucy thought, here it comes. All things must end.

"I'm a Catholic."

He snorted. "Yeah, right. Luckily, I was spared all that crap. I think my mom is some kind of Episcopal, but of course Dad is a devout atheist. He used to sing 'Pie in the Sky When You Die,' whenever we drove past a church. That's another thing that endeared our family to the McCullensburgians."

He would have chattered on in this vein, but it dawned on him that the social smile had quite faded from her face, which now bore a curious expression of resignation, a slight tightening of the jaw, as if anticipating some attack.

"Wait, you mean you're actually Catholic?" A little frown creased his brow. "You believe all that God and the saints sh-business? And the pope?"

"Uh-huh. It's a package."

"Wow. Why?"

She shrugged. "Why is the sky blue? I don't know. I'm just a believer. Mom says I have the God gene."

"So… by the whole package you mean, um, virgin birth, raising the dead? Abortion? Birth control? Lourdes?"

"Well, it's a very big package. I'm not sure the pope buys the whole package. But pretty much, yeah."

"But you're smart."

"And you're insulting," she snapped. She got to her feet, stuck two fingers into her mouth, and produced an amazingly loud whistle. The dog leaped from the shallows and started up the beach, followed by the twins and Lizzie.

"I'm frying. I'm going to take the kids for a swim." She turned and walked away.

After a moment, he followed, attracted, as was his pattern, by rejection, although this was a new, and actually a more interesting, variety.

Karp did not have to go to jail anymore. Although it had never been a place he liked to visit in the days when he had to go a lot, he still went from time to time. Usually, he went because he thought it was good for his soul to immerse himself in the literally stinking part of the system he administered. It was particularly stinking today because it was hot, stinking with the unmistakable penetrating stench produced when large numbers of male primates are kept confined. It had been hot for several weeks and was going to get hotter according to the smiling weatherpersons on the news. Karp would not have minded if they air-conditioned the jail, but he understood that his fellow citizens did not, by and large, agree. That would be coddling criminals, a practice now many years out of fashion, and it did not help to explain that the people in the Tombs were not criminals but the accused awaiting disposition, entitled to a presumption of innocence. But not to comfort.

His visit today was more than mere responsibility. Karp was visiting a prisoner named Woodrow P. Bailey, who was in the Tombs because he had beat up his girlfriend, using in the attack a forty-ounce beer bottle and a metal chair. Serious disfigurement had resulted, which put the alleged crime into the first-degree-assault category. Karp was visiting Bailey not because of this crime but because Karp had a little list, and Bailey was on it. The list contained the names of the employees of Lenox Entertainment who had made significant contributions to the congressman's campaign. Karp sat down in the hard chair the interview room supplied and dabbed his face with his handkerchief. Karp was not much of a sweat hog, but the heat and humidity in the place could have drawn moisture from a brick. The door opened and Bailey came in, accompanied by his lawyer. Karp kept his face from showing surprise. The man with Bailey was not some kid Legal Aid assignee, but David Douglas Root, a criminal lawyer who specialized in high-profile cases. If you were a hip-hop artist and you got wasted and knocked down a nun with the Navigator, Root would be your choice.

"Well, well, Butch Karp!" cried Root affably, pumping Karp's hand. "A little shorthanded at the DA? Or are we just keeping our pencil sharpened?"

Karp gave him a thin smile. Root was a big, medium-brown man in a charcoal Zegna suit, a dazzling silk shirt, and round gold-rimmed glasses. He was sweating, too, Karp was glad to see, but not as much as his client, whose jail-orange jumpsuit was soaked dark under the arms and around the collar. Bailey was heavy, dark-faced, with a dull, confused look. A drinker, Karp thought. He had a towel around his neck, with which he dabbed nervously at his dripping face.

"Christ, it's like a fucking Turkish bath in here," said Root, taking his seat. "I'm like to lose twelve pounds. So, Butch, what do we got?"

Karp looked at Bailey, not the lawyer, and said, "Mr. Bailey, as I'm sure your lawyer has told you, you're charged with a very serious offense. It's what we call a class B violent felony, and if convicted, it carries a sentence of from six to twenty-five years in prison."

"I was drunk," said Bailey in a low, resentful voice.

Karp ignored this. "How the case gets handled is really up to the district attorney's office. We have a lot of discretion. Now, sometimes when a person helps us out with an important prosecution, we're able to cut him some slack on his own case. Helps us with information, or testimony."

Karp saw the prisoner's brow knit with concentration. "I don't know… I mean, what kind of case?"

Karp pulled out a notebook and read off a list of contributions Bailey had made to the congressman's reelection war chest. A thousand dollars in August directly to the candidate, and five thousand in September to the Harlem United Political Action Committee, an organization the congressman controlled. The same in the previous year and in the three years before that.

"Where's this going, Butch?" asked Root. "What's this got to do with the case here?"

"I'm just curious how a man who works cleaning up theaters can afford to spare six grand a year on political contributions."

"It's no crime," said Root. "Besides, since when is the DA interested in federal election law?"

"We're not. We're always interested in money laundering, though." Karp spoke again to the prisoner: "Mr. Bailey, money laundering is a crime. It's when someone gives you cash they earned at a criminal activity and you help turn it over, convert it into honest money. So I have to ask you, did someone give you money to make political contributions?"

Bailey opened his mouth, but before he could say anything, Root said, "Don't answer that!" Bailey closed his mouth and wiped his dripping face.

Karp said, "You could do yourself some real good here, Mr. Bailey. You also might want to think about whether Mr. Root here is representing your best interests or somebody else's."

Root shot to his feet. "This interview is over. Come on, Woodrow, we're out of here."

Bailey looked back and forth between the two men and then got to his feet. Root signaled for the guard and then turned to Karp. "I intend to lodge a complaint with the bar."

"Oh? Gosh, what did I do?"

Root held up his hand and counted off on stubby, tan fingers. "One, you accuse my client of a crime out of the clear blue sky without a shred of evidence. Two, you impugn his political liberties, on the theory that a workingman of color can't possibly have enough interest in politics to contribute to a campaign. Three, you use the coercive power of the state to pressure him into assisting you in a political vendetta against a distinguished political leader. A distinguished black political leader, which is no accident coming from you." Root turned to Bailey. "This man is a well-known racist. I don't want you ever talking to him or anybody from his office if I'm not in the room."

"I'm a big fan of Harry Belafonte," said Karp.

The guard came. The door swung open. Root said, "And don't think I won't go public with this outrage."

"Who's picking up your fee, counselor? Pennant? Soames?" Karp asked as they left, but received no answer.

They had AC in the DA's office, but it was creaky and barely competent to deal with El Nino, or whatever was turning New York into Brazzaville. Little reciprocating fans hung in the corners of the larger offices, relics of the days before air-conditioning. Karp had his turned on. He had his feet up on the desk, his coat off, his collar open, and his shirtsleeves rolled up, none of which helped very much. Across the desk from him sat a small, dapper man in a beige linen suit, jacket and all, with his collar buttoned. His name was Murrow and he was Karp's special assistant.

"That line about Harry Belafonte was probably unwise," observed Murrow when Karp had finished telling him about the Bailey interview. "You'll read about it in the papers."

"Oh, fuck the papers! Besides, I do like Harry Belafonte. I used to have all his albums."

"Albums?"

"Yes, albums. Music used to come on shellac discs that had only one song on a side, and they sold them in books that looked like photo albums, and when LPs came out, they still called them albums."

"LPs?"

"Fuck you, Murrow. Young fart."

"So what are we going to do about the congressman?"

"Well, personally, I am going to leave the office right now and catch the early bird out to the Island. The congressman will keep, and since we've conquered crime, I don't think anything important is going to come up over the weekend. In fact, I might take a day or two off."

Murrow affected gaping wonderment. "You mean… you mean… not come into the office at all? On a workday?"

"Yeah, but I'll leave the key to the front door under the mat, in case anyone wants to try a malefactor in my absence." To the astonishment of all his colleagues, he actually left.

On the train, Karp dropped his tray and set out some files, more to assuage his conscience than because he intended to do any useful work. As chief assistant DA, he had general responsibility for the professional work of the office, which amounted to insuring, to the extent possible, that the four-hundred-odd attorneys employed there did not lose too many cases through incompetence or win too many through cheating. He also had a hand in recruiting and training, which he enjoyed, and in routine administration, which he loathed.

He picked up one of the case files and read. A murder case, this one, and typical: a couple of dumb kids in their early twenties had held up a convenience store and shot the owner. It was a good case. Ten years previously they might have gone with a plea in a case like this because they were so jammed with murders, and the bad guys knew it, and the DA's office had figured it was better to be sure the villains served eight for manslaughter than go for the expense of a felony murder trial and risk an acquittal. Now, with the drop in murders, they were set to try nearly everything. The People were in the catbird seat again. Karp should have been happy.

Karp was not. He knew he was a competent enough bureaucrat; he did his job with few complaints from either high or low. But he was not a great bureaucrat. He did not love bureaucracy. A thrill did not spring in his heart when he gained a 3 percent increase in the furniture budget. Political dealing bored him. He did not like manipulation, and he positively despised attempts to manipulate him, which were constant. He took his pen and made a notation on a pad. There was a flaw in the chain of evidence affecting the murder gun, which was the chief piece of physical evidence linking the defendants to the crime. It was not a case wrecker, but it had to be looked into, and the ADA in charge had missed it. Or maybe it wasn't that important; maybe he was just a pettifogging pain in the ass, which he knew was getting to be his rep among the younger ADAs. He wrote a stiff little note to the ADA and closed the file. Screw them, let them learn to do it right! He leaned back in the seat and closed his eyes. Coaching was fine if you were a coach. But Karp wanted to play. Suppressing this thought, and the desire, for the ten thousand and somethingth time, ever the good soldier, he opened his eyes, shoved the file back into the tattered cardboard wallet he used instead of a briefcase, and pulled out another one.

"What's with Lucy?" Karp asked his wife. He had not seen his daughter since the Easter break. He had been at the farm for barely an hour, most of which time he had spent with the three children. Now they were alone together in the kitchen packing things for the cookout.

"What did you notice?"

"I don't know. She's more… um…"

"Normal?"

He laughed. "Yeah, now that you mention it. Lighter, maybe. More like a college girl, less like a nun. It must be the away-from-home effect."

"It's a boy," said Marlene. "Could you grab those beers?"

Karp heaved a stack of cold cases up to his waist and staggered out to the truck.

Returning, he said, "That's a lot of beer. How many people at this cookout?"

"Just us and the Heeneys. The Heeney men are beer people."

Then it hit him. "Did you say a boy?"

"Uh-huh. Rose's younger."

"Lucy?"

"Yes, Lucy. She's passed through puberty, although I think you had a trial that week, you might have missed it. Anyway, now she's eighteen, she's old enough to have a date, and she actually has one. Several." And here Marlene clasped her hands together and looked to heaven with a hearty "Thank you, Jesus!"

"Well, yeah," said Karp. "I'm glad. This is, this kid is like, you know, a regular kid, right?"

"Perfectly regular. Looks like an angel in fact, if angels are ever horny and eighteen. He's a freshman at MIT, so he can tie his shoes. I haven't run his sheet but I assume it's clear of major violent felonies, unlike you-know-who last year. STDs I would bet negative, too, a mom's prayer. Most of all, I think she's just barely beginning to understand that he's interested. That would be a first."

"Why? She's a great kid," said Karp defensively.

"Yes, and your daughter's primary belief, besides the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church, is that she's an ugly sack of shit and a freak. That tends to send the suitors running unless they have the prescience to whack her smartly with a ball-peen hammer."

"What suitors?"

"Any number. Warren Wang for one."

"The pudgy kid?"

"Him. Not that he'd be my first choice to look at over the turkey every Thanksgiving for the next forty years, but he was nuts about her. She wouldn't give him the time of day, and he was too chicken to try the hammer. Speaking of which, I told Rose we'd be there by seven-thirty. Get that box of meat."

When they were settled in the cab of the Dodge, Marlene cranked the engine, but did not immediately put the truck into gear. "I ought to warn you. I'd kind of hoped that we could make this a pleasant evening, for the kids' sake if nothing else, but there are tensions chez Heeney."

"He's a drunk," said Karp.

"Hmm, not really. He's a drinking man, and while I know you think it's the same thing, it's not." She paused to reflect. "Here's an example. This afternoon, we were in their kitchen making potato salad and coleslaw, all of us, chopping stuff, and we were having a good time. There was a little radio playing oldies, and Rose and I were singing along, and Dan and Lucy were making wisecracks. The boys and Lizzie were underfoot, trying to help. It was, you know-jolly. Everyone was getting along, it was real life. The old ladies were sucking on cheap Italian white, just enough to get a little buzz. Because of the radio we didn't hear the car pull up. So they just walked in and it was like a switch went off."

"Who 'they'?"

"Heeney. Red, they call him. And the son Emmett. A clone of Dad. The pair of them look like the guys the IRA sends by when you're getting too cozy with the Brits. It was amazing. I was facing the door when he walked in and he stood there for a second just looking. He had the weirdest expression on his face, like how could a bunch of people be having such a good time if he wasn't there, like it was a betrayal or something. Then Lizzie spotted him and they both mobbed him, Lizzie and Rose. Dan didn't move. Then Red kind of eased away from the females around him and said kind of in an aside, but clear enough, 'My other daughter,' meaning Dan. He has this big mop of curls and Red and the other kid are buzz cuts, like the Marines. So he goes over to him and gives him a hug and grabs him around the neck and yanks his hair. He yells something like 'Get the hedge clippers.' All jolly he-man fun. But Dan was mortified."

"I can't wait to meet this guy," said Karp. "I thought dads yelling about kids' hair went out in the sixties."

"Not apparently in southern West Virginia. Anyway, he sucked all the air out of the room."

"Sounds charming. I'm really looking forward to this now."

"No, he is charming. He's Irish after all. But besides that, the guy manages to combine the worst features of fascism and communism. It's quite a show. You'll see."

She pulled up on a sandy shoulder and honked. With shouts the Heeney men descended on the truck and unloaded. Karp appreciated the accuracy of Marlene's description. Emmett was a big, shambling kid with a football tackle's blocky build. Red Heeney was red in face and bristles, with the shape of a beer keg and a pair of bright blue eyes set to play continuously the message I'm nobody's fool. He clasped Karp's hand in a he-man grip and engaged him in conversation as they hauled stuff down to the beach. It was more of a monologue than a conversation. Heeney complimented Karp on the accomplishments and loveliness of his womenfolk, the excellent qualities of his sons, queried him about his former athletic prowess and his present profession. This was done with a certain amount of self-deprecating humor, but Karp, who was a skilled interrogator himself, understood that the man was laying charm.

Karp had no idea why, but he suspected that charming was instinctive in Heeney. The man was a natural politician. Like most of his type he had also to be the center of attention and the man in charge. He organized the picnic with somewhat more energy than picnics need to be organized, but with such good nature that no one except Daniel was offended. The fire was made, the burgers and hot dogs sizzled thereupon, games were organized and played aggressively, without sparing the feelings of the younger members of the party, whom Heeney encouraged not to be crybabies. Throughout, can after can of beer vanished into the mouths of the three Heeneys. They ate; Red Heeney presided. They all learned a great deal about his opinions, and about the union election he was contesting, the iniquity of the mining companies, the corruption of the administrations of Robbens County, of the state and federal governments, of politicians generally. Karp had to admit that the guy was at least an amusing blowhard. He found it oddly relaxing not to have to say anything. He often had to say a lot at work. Summer's blue dusk descended; some pale stars made their appearance through the humid overcast.

"Well, are you having fun?" Marlene asked Karp as they sat together on their blanket, replete.

"Yeah, it's like watching bears at the zoo. The boys are having a good time."

After supper, Heeney had organized a base-running game on the beach in which everyone had joined at some time, and the twins and all the Heeneys were still mad at it, the Heeneys now playing drunk and with increasing violence. As they watched, Dan Heeney slid into Emmett like Ty Cobb, knocking him over. A scuffle instantly sprang up, some shoving, some language, thrown blows. Red Heeney dived in and threw some blows of his own. Dan Heeney stalked off down the beach, like a ten-year-old, while the actual ten-year-olds watched openmouthed.

"He's not having a good time," observed Karp.

"Yeah, poor kid! Rose has been bending my ear. The sadness of her life: two men she loves and they can't get along."

"Why not? He seems like a nice enough kid."

"Oh, he's a doll. I offered him a job."

"What, shoveling dogshit?"

"You always say that, as if that was the only thing we do. No, I need someone to handle office drudgery and also do some basic training. Billy's up to his ears with all the outside dogs, and I want him to concentrate on the attack work. Lucy is also planning to stay. Needless to say."

"The plot thickens."

"Thicker than you think. I happened to mention the other day that I needed someone, and Rose practically sat on my lap until I agreed that Dan would be just right. They're going back home after the weekend and she doesn't want him there just now."

"Because he doesn't get on with Daddy and the bro?"

"Not exactly. She's terrified and he's her baby. Funny, because she's got Lizzie, but there it is."

"What's she frightened about?"

"Oh, this union business. Threats. Someone shot their dog. And the book in the Heeney family is that little Dan can't quite cope with the real world. That's part of the problem. He's really bright, of course, but school bright, which means that he's more or less stopped thinking that Red Heeney's opinions are the Encyclopedia Britannica. A guy like Red gets a kid like that and he has to project incompetence in worldly things onto him, just to balance things out and keep the kid subordinate. He's got book larnin' but he ain't doing no real man's work. Plus the lefty stuff: he's hanging out with the bourgeois exploiters, he's going to work for the capitalists in some way or another. Although, it's not articulated like that. It's a control thing. Heeney is a decent enough guy, but when he laughs, everyone laughs, and when he cries, everyone cries, or else. Oedipus in West Virginia, the usual."

"It seems kind of old-fashioned, doesn't it? Union violence. Working-stiff dad versus college kid. Like something from the thirties. Or a movie."

"Well, according to Rose, the thirties are still going on in Robbens County. And that family stuff-Christ, I got some of that crap from my folks. College girl, think you know everything…"

"Gosh, good thing we don't have anything like that in our family."

"Oh?" said Marlene. "What exactly do you mean by that remark?"

"Nothing, dear. There is absolutely nothing in common between the Red and Dan show and the Marlene and Lucy show. Not a thing."

"You're horrible." Marlene got up. "I'm getting another beer. Do you want anything?"

"Only your happiness," he said, so she kicked sand in his face as she departed.

Now real darkness fell. Heeney had, of course, brought all kinds of dangerous fireworks, which he and Emmett now set off, with drunken yells, while the twins vied with one another to see how close they could skip to exploding objects and white-hot missiles, Zak in the lead, Giancarlo following each dare, but in such a way as to constrain his brother from doing something really stupid.

Karp watched all this with a fair calm, suppressing his Jewish-mother instincts as he had learned to do during his many years of marriage to a shiksa desperado. Marlene was in charge of danger chez Karp. Karp was actually waiting for the Red Heeney finale and was not at all surprised at the form it took.

The fireworks ended, the exhausted boys and the little girl collapsed on the blankets with their mothers. Emmett and Red sat together, Lucy and Dan a little distance away. A Coleman lantern had been lit. By its light, Karp observed that Red Heeney had switched to sucking from a pint bottle. Emmett was still guzzling beer, and tossing the empties upon a large pile of the same, punctuating the night with tinny clangs at remarkably short, almost metronomic intervals. Heeney began to sing. He had a fine voice, a dramatic tenor, a whiskey tenor actually, but pleasant. He sang union songs, "Joe Hill" and "Dark as a Dungeon" and "Spring Hill Disaster," in which his family joined, and also, to Karp's surprise, Marlene and Lucy, and then Irish ballads and rebel songs, "Kevin Barry," "Four Green Fields," and others more obscure. Then Marlene and Lucy did "Rose of Tralee," like angels in harmony, which made Karp happy, but which took the center of attention away from Heeney, who replied with an angry "Come Out Ye Black and Tans," at the end of which he flung his empty pint arcing into the night.

"You're not singing, Karp," he declared.

"I can't sing. I can't carry a tune."

Heeney stuck out an accusing finger, a digit like a center punch. "Nah, you can't sing 'cause you're a fuckin' lawyer. Lawyers got no songs. You know why?" He thumped his chest. " 'Cause they got no hearts. No songs, no hearts. Isn't that right, Karp?"

"Maybe we have little small ones."

Rose said, "Red, it's late, maybe-"

"Shut up!" snarled Heeney. "I'm talking to my pal, the lawyer. Let me tell you what the law is. The law is nothing but the padding on the hammer the rich uses to bash in the heads of the working people. They don't care to see the blood and the brains, oh, no, they're too delicate for that, so they disguise it with lots of words, and they get a bunch of pimps and make them judges and lawyers to confuse the people so no one knows they been robbed. Property is theft, did you know that, Mr. Lawyer Man? That's what your lawyer is, a conveyancer of stolen property. But when some poor boy steals a crust of bread, oh, that's when the majesty of the law gets all riled up and grabs him and throws him in the dungeon, because property is sacred once it's legally stolen."

"Sneakers," said Karp.

"What?"

"Sneakers, is what they steal. Expensive sneakers. Or gold chains. Or designer jackets, those are big now. Now that you mention it, I have not once locked up a poor boy for stealing a crust of bread. I'd like to, of course, but in twenty years the opportunity has never come my way."

Heeney got up on his knees and leaned over the lantern. "Oh, smart guy. You wouldn't be so smart if I punched you in the nose, would you? Huh? Smart Jew lawyer. Huh?" He held up his fist to demonstrate the punching apparatus.

Karp didn't move. He said in a calm voice, "That would be an assault, Red. That would be against the law."

"Fuck the law and fuck you!"

"You're drunk, Heeney," said Karp in the same tone. "Settle down."

"And you're fuckin' yellow, Karp," Heeney said, staggering to his feet. "Get up, you fucker. Fuckin' Jew lawyer. I can take you, drunk or sober."

Heeney put up his fists and lunged forward, kicking over the lantern. Rose uttered a little scream and grabbed at her husband's arm. He flung her away with a curse. Instantly, his two sons were on him, Emmett tackling him to the ground, and Dan dropping onto his chest and securing his arms. Rose snatched the lantern out of harm's way, and the three Heeneys rolled and heaved on the ground, grunting and cursing. Marlene could see Rose was crying and, in a low voice, said to Karp, "I think the party's over. Let's scram."

Which they did, leaving all their gear to be gathered tomorrow. As they walked away, Karp noticed Lucy flip aside a bat-sized length of driftwood. She had been going to wade in with that if the bunch of them had jumped me, he thought with a shock. He didn't know whether to be ashamed or proud.