Golden Orange by Joseph Wambaugh Read Free Book Online

fact, they favored free abortions for every welfare mother in the country. The bumper sticker said: ABORT A FETUS, KILL A DEMOCRAT .
    â€œWhat’re you going to do now?” Tess asked. “Got another job?”
    â€œOh, that ferry gig was jist part time. I have a Coast Guard license and they needed somebody during the holidays, so …”
    Her teeth were the most perfect he’d ever seen up close. Rich people’s teeth. And she had those cheekbones. Did rich women get them the same way they got those teeth? he thought boozily.
    â€œThe newspaper said you’re an ex-policeman.”
    â€œMedical retirement. Bad back. Fifteen a my best years I gave them.”
    â€œThe pension isn’t enough to live on, is it?”
    â€œI gotta work. Besides, I wanna work. I’m still young.”
    â€œForty,” she said. “The article was very revealing.”
    This woman was interested in him! He felt his goddamn pump starting to miss beats again. The scary heart business had started when he was just weeks from facing the hanging judge: two beats off every sixty.
    â€œI think I gotta cut down on my worries,” he said, massaging his chest.
    â€œYou feeling okay?”
    â€œThe court appearance. It was … stressful.”
    He could feel the sweat break out on his forehead. He really wasn’t feeling that well. Tonight of all nights, when his miserable luck was changing for the better!
    â€œPerhaps you ought to get a good night’s sleep,” Tess Binder said, snuffing out her cigarette. “After what you’ve been through.”
    She was leaving! And now his pump was firing on every fourth stroke, and there was a fire in the engine room!
    â€œI like this place,” she said. “I’ll be back.” She smiled for the last time and floated away from him. He thought he heard wind chimes as she drifted through the doorway.
    Winnie remembered a photo he’d once seen of a blond model with twin Borzois on a double leash: elegant leggy animals with long aristocratic Balkan noses. The dogs looked like Marlene Dietrich, and the woman was like this one. He took a quarter off the bar to play Tony Bennett’s version of “Sophisticated Lady.”
    A roar went up as Carlos Tuna’s turtle, Regis, got cheered on by a small group at the other end of the bar. The reptile had stopped racing and had mounted Bilge O’Toole’s Irma. Regis was gasping open-mouthed and struggling to find his way inside Irma’s armor plate.
    Bilge was in the corner crying in his beer with a rich guy from Bay Island who never should have said, “What’s wrong tonight, Bilge?”
    Bilge didn’t know about the ravishing of Irma until the cheering started. When he saw it he roared like a sea lion, and Spoon had to scramble over the bar to break up a brawl.
    Winnie got up, staggered to the men’s room, splashed cold water on his face, but felt no better. By the time he got back to the stool, Bilge was drinking alone, twisting his patchy hair into dreadlocks, wailing, “You okay, Irma?” to the turtle, who was sound asleep in a puddle of spilled beer.
    â€œWhat’s wrong with you ?” Spoon mumbled to Winnie, who paid his tab and listed unsteadily, still rubbing his chest.
    â€œI don’t feel so good. My pump. It’s like, missing beats!” Winnie said. “That’s scarier than Dan Quayle!”
    â€œWell, I can’t help you with that,” Spoon said, droning. “I’m busy as the beach master on D-Day. I can’t be worryin about turtles gettin boffed and I can’t fix bum tickers, okay? Do you understand what I’m sayin?”
    Guppy, whom one of the snooker-playing cops had outlined in chalk while she snoozed on the bartop, suddenly lifted her head from her arms and cried: “Of course there’s something wrong, Winnie! You’re drunk , you dummy!”
    Spoon decided to pop for a musical