Cold Blood Read Online Free Page B

laughed.
    â€œYou finished or what?” asked the boy behind them.
    â€œWe’re finished.” Murphy rubbed her hands together. “I’m cold, Jack. Give him a couple of bucks and let’s go inside. Sun’s going down anyway.”
    Jack pulled three ones out of his pocket and handed them to the teenager. He set his gun next to his wife’s.
    â€œYou sure the chamber’s empty?” she asked.
    He picked up his gun and checked. “Chamber empty. Safety on.”
    â€œGood.”
    He set the gun back on the rack. “I’m a quick study.” He shoved his glasses and plugs into his vest pocket.
    â€œYeah. Right. Don’t quit your day job.”
    He smiled and followed her into the South St. Paul Rod and Gun clubhouse, a building that resembled a ranch-style house with a deck attached. The Mississippi River snaked in front of it and railroad tracks cut behind it. It was a block off Concord, a long street connecting the city of St. Pauland the suburb of South St. Paul. The gun club shared the neighborhood with a furniture liquidator, a used-car lot, a beauty shop and a Dairy Queen.
    Murphy checked the bulletin board inside the clubhouse door. Covered with handwritten index cards and flyers: “Beretta AL390 Gold Mallard 20 GA. $725.” “Custom Docks. Call for an estimate.” “4×10 Utility Trailer made by Cargo. ALMOST NEW . Drop down ramp. $900.” “Lab choc. M. AKC Exc. bird dog. $2,500.” “ FOR SALE . Remington 870. Nice clean gun. $450.” “German Wire-Haired Pups. AKC. Exc. Blood Lines. MAKE GOOD HUNTERS / FAMILY PETS . $500.”
    â€œDecent price,” Murphy muttered. She grabbed a bar napkin and wrote down a phone number.
    â€œShopping for a gun?” asked Jack, looking over her shoulder.
    â€œA dog.”
    â€œSince when? You’re not home enough. Your place is too small. A dog would go stir-crazy on that dinky houseboat. It’d chew the shit out of everything.”
    â€œStop hyperventilating.” She shoved the napkin into the pocket of her jeans. “We’ll discuss it over a beer.”
    It didn’t take much to turn their discussions into arguments, and that’s why they periodically separated. In their eight years of marriage, they’d lived apart as much as they’d lived together. Jack stayed in the house they’d bought together when they first got married. She had a houseboat on the Mississippi River, moored across from downtown at the St. Paul Yacht Club. They kept trying to make their marriage work and were most successful in the bedroom; they never argued about sex.
    All the tables were taken; they found two stools next to each other at the bar. “What can I get you?” asked the bartender. He was a big man with curly red hair, a red beard and a red flannel shirt. He could have passed for a lumberjack.
    â€œGrain Belt,” said Murphy.
    â€œSt. Pauli Girl,” said Jack.
    â€œNo imports.”
    â€œGrain Belt then.”
    The bartender set two cans on the bar. “Sign up for the big shoot?” He thumbed toward a flyer behind the bar: MINI JACKPOT TRAP SHOOT .
    Murphy took a bump off her beer. “You betcha.”
    He eyed Jack. “You that ringer she been threatening to bring in?”
    Murphy laughed and then coughed and held a napkin to her face; she felt beer coming up her nose. Jack glared at her. She cleared her throat. “No,” she said. She blew her nose and took another sip of beer. “This is my husband, Jack. Jack, this is Gunnar.”
    â€œGunner?”
    â€œGunnar,” said the bartender, without smiling. He walked to the other end of the bar.
    â€œIsn’t that what I said?”
    â€œNo. Gunnar is Norwegian or something. Gunner is . . . I don’t know . . . a good name for a hunting dog maybe.”
    â€œBack to the dog, are we?”
    â€œI’m the only one in my family without