The Blackstone Chronicles - By John Saul Page 0,131
it in the furnace.”
“Very funny,” Becker groused. “But when I’m done, you won’t even recognize it.”
“Exactly my point,” the contractor taunted. He slowed the pickup to a stop about ten feet from the Beckers’ garage, and swung out of the cab just as the back door flew open and Ed’s five-year-old daughter, Amy, came barreling out, closely followed by Riley, a six-month-old Labrador puppy that Amy had managed to convince her parents was “absolutely the only thing I want for Christmas. If I can just have a puppy, I promise I’ll never ask for anything else again as long as I live so-help-me-God.” While the campaign had worked sufficiently well so that the puppy had, indeed, taken up residence in the Becker house, Amy’s father had yet to overcome the fear of dogs from which he’d suffered since he was his daughter’s age. As the comparatively nonthreatening eight-week-old ball of fluff that Riley had been upon arrival developed into the immensely menacing—at least to Ed Becker—forty-pound medicine-ball-with-feet that Riley now was, Ed had become increasingly wary of his daughter’s pet. Now, as Riley did his best to climb into Ed’s arms and administer one of his specialty soggy face licks, the attorney who had never quailed before the most irate judge or angry client cowered away from the puppy’s enthusiastic onslaught.
“Put him in the house, Amy,” Ed ordered, reaching for authority although his guts seemed to have turned to Jell-O.
“He won’t hurt you, Daddy,” Amy replied with enough scorn to make her father blush. “He’s just being friendly. He loves you!”
“Well, I don’t love him,” Ed muttered, now fending the dog off with both arms.
Riley, yapping happily and utterly unaware of the havoc he was wreaking on Ed’s intestines, kept leaping at Ed’s chest, enjoying the intricacies of this new game.
“Riley, down!” Bonnie Becker commanded as she thrust open the back door and joined the group around the pickup truck. The dog instantly dropped to the ground, though his entire body quivered with barely suppressed excitement as he gazed adoringly up at Ed. “Take him inside, Amy,” Bonnie told her daughter. “Can’t you see he’s scaring your father half to death?”
Ed’s embarrassed flush deepened as his daughter grasped the dog by the collar and began pulling him toward the house. Though the Lab, only a few inches shorter and no lighter than the little girl, could have dug in and refused to go, he happily submitted to his small mistress’s tugging. Child and pet disappeared back into the house, and Ed, his courage fully restored now that the puppy was nowhere to be seen, attempted to recover a little of his dignity. “I am not afraid of him,” he declared. “It’s just that he’s so big, he could hurt someone! He has to learn not to jump all over people!”
His wife nodded gravely. “You’re absolutely right,” Bonnie agreed. “Why don’t you train him?”
Ed attempted a scathing look, failed miserably, then flushed even redder when Bonnie giggled. “It’s not funny!” he insisted, though now his own lips were starting to twitch. “He could really hurt someone!”
“Oh, he really could,” Bill McGuire agreed, his expression deliberately deadpan. “I know I was scared out of my mind.” He winked at Bonnie. “Did you see the nasty way his tail was wagging?”
“And the way his lips curled back when he tried to lick Ed’s face,” Bonnie added. “That was pretty scary.”
“Oh, all right,” Ed groused, finally recognizing he was going to get no sympathy. “So when it comes to dogs, I’m a wimp. So sue me.” He went around to the tailgate of the truck, pulled it down, and began struggling with the big oak dresser. “You two going to help me with this, or would you rather just poke fun at me all day?”
“Poking fun sounds good to me,” Bill McGuire said. “How about you, Bonnie?”
“It’s not junk,” Ed informed her. “It’s solid oak, and it’s at least a hundred years old, and—”
“And if it’s not junk, then how come they gave it to you?” Bonnie asked.
“Gave it to him?” Bill McGuire asked, the question popping out of his mouth before he’d bothered to think of the implications of Bonnie’s question. “Did he tell you we gave it—” Too late, he realized his mistake, then looked away so he could pretend he didn’t see Ed glaring at him.
“How much?” Bonnie asked, suddenly far more interested in the dresser than she’d been even