Trap Line Read Online Free

mine.”
    Albury almost smiled. He had never beat her, even when he should have. It had been almost four years since she’d left. Now she was a sandy and pathetic stranger.
    “The watch wasn’t yours, Peg. Neither was the money.”
    “How do you know? Is that what she said, your tramp? Who do you believe, your wife or a tramp?”
    “The money and the watch, Peg, now.”
    “Now, now, now,” she snarled. “Like you were boss.” Her eyes drilled him from under the brim of the hat. “What are you gonna do if I say no? Go to the cops? They’ll believe me, not you, Mr. Convict.”
    Albury suppressed a sudden gout of anger.
    “I won’t go to the police, Peg. I will tell Ricky.”
    “Trash,” she hollered. From somewhere in the folds of her dress she extracted Laurie’s Omega and dashed it into the sand. She might have stepped on it, but Albury nudged it aside and stooped quickly to pick it up.
    “Tell Ricky? Tell my baby? Why don’t you tell him his daddy’s a convict? Gonna tell him his daddy was in jail when his sister died? Tell him that, Breeze.”
    “He already knows, Peg.” Just, Albury reflected, as he certainly knew what his mother had become.
    “Now give me back the money.”
    “No!” She lurched in the sand, dislodging with one foot a near-empty bottle that had been hidden by the canvas bag. “I need the money, Breeze. Charlie’s sick. Can’t work.”
    “Drunk, you mean.”
    “He ain’t. You think everybody’s drunk, don’t you? Charlie’s sick. It’s his heart. Doctor says he’s got to go up to the VA in Miami. It’s true, I swear it.”
    Albury knew she was probably lying, not that it mattered. To get Laurie’s money he would have to wrestle her. It wasn’t worth it.
    “OK, Peg, you keep the money. Just keep it.”
    “It’s for Charlie, goddamnit.”
    “Yeah. And stay away from the trailer. I’m changing the locks tonight, so your key’s no good anymore.”
    Peg’s hand moved tremulously to her neck, where the key hung like a charm from a rusty necklace.
    “God, Peg, you’re a mess,” Albury said in a whisper.
    She was scrabbling in the sand for her bottle as he turned away.
    ALBURY HAD a couple of stops to make, one at a sporting goods store, the next at the grocery. Then he parked at Key Plaza and hurried, six-pack under arm, across to the ball park. The lights were on already, and Albury was afraid the game had started. He arrived just in time to see Ricky walk to the mound.
    It was a game of no particular consequence, and it had attracted only about a hundred people, mostly parents and girl friends. Albury slid into the bleachers behind home plate next to an angular black man in sandals and a white cotton shirt.
    “Evenin’, Enos. How about a beer?”
    “Thanks, Breeze. You cut it pretty close tonight, uh?”
    “Been a poor day.” Albury gave a half-embarrassed wave to Ricky, who rewarded it with a big grin and a doff of his maroon cap.
    Ricky didn’t look sharp. Some of his deliveries were higher than they should have been, the ball not moving as well as it might. Still, the first three batters went out weakly, and Albury felt himself beginning to relax. He leaned back, elbows propped on the bleacher behind him, savoring a tentative breeze that had sprung up off the Gulf.
    “God, that feels good.”
    “Yeah,” Enos said. “You know, that boy of yours is some kind of pitcher.”
    “I think he can go all the way.”
    “I believe you’re right.”
    In the second, Buddy Martin, Enos’s son, stung Ricky with a sharp single off a curve nobody else on the field would have hit. Albury snorted.
    “Maybe they could go all the way together. I’d rather have Buddy on the same team than hittin’ against Ricky.”
    Enos laughed politely at the compliment.
    “As long as he goes, Breeze. I don’t really care if it’s to baseball, to college, or to the Army. As long as he goes.”
    “You and your boy fightin’?”
    “Hell, no. I just don’t want him to grow up in