Sweetheart by Andrew Coburn Read Free Book Online

shown you off.”
    “You still don’t know me.”
    “You’re wrong, Tony. So wrong.” She spoke slowly, working her eyes into his while she let her blond hair tumble down. Her fingers glanced over him. “My turn,” she whispered. “My turn to touch.”
    Eventually, exuberantly, he embraced her, his voice stumbling out of his mouth. The words were heated and intimate, the sort he had never uttered to his first wife. She had been deeply devout, a clay Christ above her bed and saints beside it, a trace of martyrdom in her heart each time he had touched her, which he had stopped doing long before her death, though he had certainly still cherished her, more than she ever could have guessed. His second wife was from a different generation, another world. Legs bowed over him, she panted, “Yes, Tony, yes.”
    Later, wearing matching silk robes, they made their way downstairs, the whole house to themselves, which was rare. She settled on the sofa his sister had earlier occupied and watched him pour Saint Raphael into two glasses. He added soda and a twist to hers and then tasted it to make sure it was right. It always was. He joined her on the sofa; for the time being he was concerned only with immediate reality, grateful that she was back. He would have been content to sit there in silence with her, an arm around her, but she brought up the tragedy of his parents.
    “What are you doing about it, Tony?”
    He loved her passionately, but not blindly. Some things he would never tell her.
    • • •
    Lieutenant Christopher Wade had misgivings. In a small way he hated himself. Toying with pencils on his desk, all in need of points, he said to Trooper Denton, “What if I told you I’m a piece of shit?” Trooper Denton thought he was joking and smiled. “When I ask a question, why don’t you answer?”
    Denton said, “What’s the matter, Lieutenant?”
    “Nothing Jack Daniel’s wouldn’t cure. Run out and get me a bottle.”
    “You don’t drink.”
    “I don’t smoke either, but what am I doing with this?” Wade plucked out a Merit and lit it. “I have a riddle for you, Denton. What talks in the toilet and makes an offer you could’ve refused? You don’t know, I’ll tell you. A fed.”
    The trooper was uncertain whether to respond. He had much admiration for Wade, not a little of which was hero worship. “You into something heavy, Lieutenant?” he asked, and Wade grimaced.
    “Nothing you want to know about. I’m running off at the mouth, something I’d advise you never to do.”
    “Want me to leave you alone?”
    “I think that’s a good idea.”
    As soon as Denton closed the door behind him, Wade picked up the phone and punched out a Boston number. Eventually Russell Thurston came on the line, official-sounding, high-toned. Wade, without introduction, said, “What if I told you I’m having second thoughts?”
    “Who is this?”
    “Wade.”
    There was a tiny pause. “I’d say it’s too late, since you’ve already tipped off Scandura about Rogers. What the hell’s your problem, Lieutenant?”
    “Maybe it’s moral. Does that surprise you? I feel like I’m sinking to Gardella’s level, and there’s a good possibility you’re already there.”
    “Come on, Wade, cops aren’t expected to be saints. We do what we have to do. Otherwise society wouldn’t be fit to live in. Christ, do I have to give you a lecture?”
    “I’m a state cop, you’re a fed. Maybe we play by different rules.”
    “The rules depend on what’s at stake. They always have, always will. Do you doubt that?”
    “I doubt what we’re doing.”
    This time Thurston made his pause significant. “Do you love your wife, Wade?”
    “What’s that to you?”
    “Just answer the question, make like I’m a minister.”
    “Yes, I love her.”
    “If you want her back, you’d better hurry. I understand she’s seeing some guy steady.”
    Wade made a mark on a jotting pad, the dull tip of the pencil tearing through two