Criminals Read Online Free

“Right back.” She stumbled getting down off the stool; she couldn’t hold her beer.
    A man held the front door open and allowed a pit bull to precede him into the room. Big guy, already spotted by Knox in the crosswalk with his dog, with a funny look on his face that made Knox say casually to himself, Don’t come in here, dude. The man had on a green tank though it was not really warm enough for that, and he was handsome in a flaring way Knox had to admit made him uneasy even in some sports figures.
    â€œDog can’t come in here,” said the bartender.
    â€œShe can’t, huh?” The man advanced into the room with the dog, snubbed up tight on the leash so its front paws had to scrabble for the floor.
    â€œYou tie him up.” The bartender stretched out her whole arm and pointed her long finger.
    â€œBus stop. Can’t tie this kind of a dog up in a bus stop.”
    â€œWhat you want to come in here for?” said the bartender, not unkindly, filling a schooner and setting it on the empty bar. “This that new dog? He nice?”
    â€œShe.” The dog sat, facing the table of the two guards eating nachos. “You did it,” the man said to the bartender. The way he said it made the dog look up and emit a growl. “You goddamn married him.”
    â€œI did. Last Friday. I said I was.”
    â€œYou did it. OK. All right. Where is he?”
    â€œHe can’t sit around in here. He’s at work.”
    â€œHe knew you were with me.”
    â€œI wasn’t with you, baby.”
    The man reached in his pants and pulled out a gun, small as a phone. People set down their drinks in the quiet. He scanned theroom with the gun, like a flashlight. The bathroom door opened and Knox’s girlfriend came out. Knox held perfectly still, praying the man’s attention onto her. But one of those girl guards was sure to pull a weapon. Everybody in the place was going to get shot. He, Knox, was going to die.
    Somehow, his girlfriend took in the situation. Moving slowly, she sank into the booth with the two women. One of them put a fat arm around her. The other one had a walkie-talkie.
    â€œDon’t nobody go on your cell or nothing,” said the bartender. “This is Jerome. I know Jerome.”
    â€œYou think you know me.” He pointed the gun at her.
    â€œCome on, Jerome. Don’t do that. You don’t want to do that.” And she came out from behind the bar and put her hand up in front of the little stump of gun. She took hold of the barrel with two long fingers and thumb as if it were a straw she was going to drop into a drink. “Come on, now.” She raised the flap and went behind the bar. Jerome got up on a stool, and instead of putting the gun out of sight the bartender laid it down on the bar. Jesus God, are you kidding me? Knox screamed in his head.
    â€œSit,” Jerome said to the dog. Then he put his forehead down on the bar and his shoulders began to shake. “Baby boy,” the bartender said, spreading her fingers, with the gold ring on one, around his head and holding it while he shook.
    At one table a man got to his feet. “Hey, don’t you forget the check,” the bartender called. Then Knox’s girlfriend stood up, hugged the big security guard, and started across the room to Knox. Her face shone with tears. He stared at her outstretched arms. So people loved, even many of them, and his rank among them was not high.

skylab

    T here it was: the blue bee. Off the clothesline and down into the flowerpots, weighing down orchids with its thumb-size abdomen. It made Amy think of fat women she had washed in nursing school. A panniculus might hang to the thighs; you lifted it on the back of your hand and wrist, swabbed carefully because of yeasts. In this country the patient’s family gave the baths, women carrying basin and washcloth from home. And here you wouldn’t see a swag of fat on a patient. As