Keeper by Greg Rucka Read Free Book Online Page B

dinner?”
    “Enchiladas!” Katie shouted. “I adore enchiladas!”
    Felice smiled the way only a mother can smile at her child, then said to Natalie and Dale, “Is that all right with you two?”
    They both said that enchiladas sounded grand.
    Rubin and I said good night to everyone, then caught the number six train back up to Bleecker. We stopped at the Grand Union a block from our place for some soda, then walked to our apartment on Thompson.
     
    We had a railroad apartment that we paid far too much for. My room was immediately right off the hall as you entered. The kitchen was beyond it, then the bathroom, and then finally the hall opened into one large living room. Rubin’s room was at the far end of the apartment, in what was still technically the living room. We had installed a folding wall partition a year or so back to provide the illusion of privacy, but it didn’t really work. If he had company for the night, and I ventured further than the kitchen, I heard far more than I needed to.
    I put the soda in the fridge while Rubin continued to his room. We had a few bottles of Anchor Steam left, so I opened one for each of us and brought his to him. He had dumped his bag and was already pulling on a pair of cutoffs. I sat on the chair, looking out across the courtyard, and he took up position on the futon with a hairbrush and a couple of comic books. He put the beer on the little table by the television, out of the way of the comics, and began to brush his hair. Rubin is Puerto Rican, and his hair is almost the same light brown as his skin and eyes. We’ve known each other since we were kids, we went through Basic Training together, and he hasn’t had a haircut since we left the service. He’s been collecting his comics twice that long.
    “You’re a hippie artist freak,” I said.
    “I’m not the one who’s got holes in his ear.”
    “Earrings are cool.”
    “On pirates,” Rubin said. “Not on bodyguards. Makes you look like a . . . wimp.”
    “I’d rather look like a wimp than a . . . girl.”
    He laughed, setting the hairbrush down and taking up his beer. “You know, you talk like that, and I know you want me.”
    “Is it that obvious?”
    “This is the nineties. Homoeroticism is hip.”
    “Except in certain states.”
    “And those don’t count,” he said. “You’re going to see Alison tonight, aren’t you?”
    “Uh-huh,” I said.
    “You’re going to see Alison and I am going to stay home alone.”
    “Uh-huh.”
    “Is that fair?”
    “Nope.”
    “So you admit it?”
    “Uh-huh.”
    He drank from his bottle, then opened his first comic book. “Have a nice time, you bastard.”
    “I will,” I said, and left hoping that I was telling the truth.
    We went for Chinese at a small restaurant off Broadway near her place. We’d eaten there a couple times before and it was beginning to feel familiar. The manager gave us a wave before we were led to a table.
    Alison looked good, her color back in her skin and her eyes clear. She was wearing her hair untied, and kept having to brush it back out of her face each time she bent to the plate with her chopsticks. I told her about my day, and she told me about hers. She was working at Oxford University Press that summer, but she didn’t think of that as her job. Her job was her band.
    “We got a gig,” Alison said. “Brownie’s, Wednesday after this one.”
    “Is that good?”
    “You don’t remember going to Brownie’s?”
    “Come on, you know me. I don’t know from clubs,” I said.
    “We went last month, saw C Is For Coyote.”
    “Okay, yeah. They were good.”
    She poured herself some more tea. “It’s a good gig. You going to be able to make it?”
    “It’ll depend on the job. I’ll try, but I can’t promise anything.”
    “How’s that going?”
    “All things being equal, well. Today was a little out of the ordinary, but I think we’re doing all right.”
    “Good.”
    I looked at her, realized that she was watching me