Pockets of Darkness by Jean Rabe Read Free Book Online

this, especially you, Lou. I trained you better than this. Sloppy, cocksure, holding back for fear of hurting me. Scuttering gobshites. I see the excuses flitting behind your eyes. I should drop the lot of you, worthless as thieves!” She might not have been so furious if Otter was not here. She realized the boy’s presence was coloring things; she wanted to look more dangerous and commanding in her son’s eyes, to paint herself an authority figure that her underlings feared. Let the boy think I am terrible and important. And yet, she thought she should share some of the blame for the thieves’ failure. She’d trained them … perhaps just not well enough.
    “I probably gave Marsh a concussion,” she said, lowering her voice. “But all three of you deserved a crack in the head.” She would apologize later to Marsh and pay his dental bill. She stood silent a moment. She heard a vacuum cleaner running upstairs.
    “Maybe you knocked some sense into Marsh,” Otter suggested.
    The vacuum shut off, and furniture was pushed across the floor overhead.
    “I thought you were among my best students.” Bridget made a tsk ing sound. “What was I thinking?”
    “Boss, we’ll do better.” Rob stood, hands in front of him in a pleading gesture. “Don’t drop us. Honest, we’ll—”
    “You will do better,” Bridget said. “Now get out of here. Get Marsh to North Central. The doctors in the ER there aren’t too nosey. They’re too busy to be nosey. Take him out the back.”
    Bridget waited until they’d left, then she finished her piece of cake, the sugar softening her temper. “We’d better be on our way,” she told Otter. “Your birthday present is in a warehouse down by the docks.”
    ***

Six
    They left the F train at York Street, where an aging saxophone busker leaned against a lamppost playing All Bird’s Children . Bridget dropped a twenty into his open case; the bill stood out amid the collection of coins. They were halfway down the block when he started another Woods’ piece: My Man Benny. The persistent honking of a taxi stuck behind a delivery truck ruined the intricate jazz melody. The drivers of both vehicles started cursing at each other in different languages.
    “Maybe we should’ve taken a cab.” Otter set his step in time with the blat of the horn.
    “Cabs smell like Pine-Sol.”
    “Yeah, well, Mom, that subway smelled worse.”
    “And every other cabbie is a psycho.” Bridget mentally corrected herself; things had gotten better, now it was every third cabbie.
    Bridget did not travel by taxi, and did not own a car or possess a driver’s license. She secretly loved traveling on the subway. None of her dealings in the city took her far from a subway stop. “We only have to walk two blocks.”
    “I couldn’t tell you the last time I visited Dumbo, Mom. Nostalgic, huh? I think I was ten and on a field trip for some art exhibit. It was warmer then. Never been here at night.”
    “There are some amazing places to eat in this neighborhood,” Dustin said. “Grimaldi’s has coal-fired pizza.”
    “I like pizza,” Otter said.
    “The Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory,” Dustin continued. “No preservatives, no eggs, freshly-made hot fudge. The River Café, a little pricy, but I think well worth it. Your mother and I ate there a few days ago. The Wagyu Steak tartare was an exceptional appetizer with its Cognac gelée, and the Mediterranean sea bass with chorizo sausage and shrimp stuffing was superb. I would like to try their roasted Amish chicken. The prosciutto served with it is said to—”
    “I like pizza,” Otter repeated. “Though the swim coach says we should all watch our carbs. Kinda blew that on your garlic mashed potatoes and the birthday cake, huh? But maybe I’ll take Lacy to this Grimaldi’s, if you think it’s hot. She’d get a kick out of a date in Dumbo.”
    Dumbo referred to Down Under the Manhattan Brooklyn Overpass, a Brooklyn neighborhood that stretched to