Read Online Bust by Jason Starr, Ken Bruen - Free Book Online

saying, I need to hook up with the boyos. The boyos meant the guys from the Ra, Dillon’s name for the IRA.
    But after only a few weeks, Max started to disgust her again. She couldn’t stand his old, flabby body, and she hated the way he never stopped complaining. If he wasn’t talking about his wife, saying things like how he was “ready to trade her in for a newer model,” then he was whining about his heart or some other medical problem. And what was with all that crap music? One day he’d told her he’d teach her to appreciate “the nuances of the composers.” She’d had to look up nuances in the dictionary, then realized how full of shit he was.
    Max was like somebody’s grandfather. She didn’t know why she’d ever gotten involved with him. After taxes, sixty-four thousand dollars wasn’t as much as she’d thought it would be. Max had bucks, she knew that, but he was a real tightwad. Yeah, he had the townhouse and the Porsche, but he never took trips or bought nice clothes. And when it came to tips he had deep pockets, but short arms. If she was going to see any serious amount of money out of the relationship, it wasn’t going to be by just sleeping with him.
    Meanwhile, Dillon still hadn’t gotten her an engagement ring or talked about setting a wedding date. One night, Angela brought it up while they were lying in bed in the dark and Dillon said, “Mo croi, I gave you a Claddagh ring, that’s as married as it gets. We get some green together, I’ll bring you down to Vegas, do a Britney special, okay?”
    Angela didn’t want a fancy wedding. She just wanted to go to City Hall, maybe invite her father, her friend Laura and a couple of cousins and that’s it. But Dillon wouldn’t hear of it till they were, as he always said, “loaded.”
    He said it low-dead and she wondered for the hundredth time, was he fucking with her mind? She was Irish, and she knew how that worked. They did it just because they could, it was the national pastime. It explained the national sport, hurling, that cross between hockey and murder, played with no helmets unless you were, like, “a fag” or something. Talk about head-fucking.
    To get revenge, Angela went with Max for a weekend to Barbados, telling Dillon she was going to Greece for an aunt’s funeral. She came back more confused than ever. She didn’t like Max any better, but she was still pissed off at Dillon. She wanted things to work out with him, but she knew they never would, because of money. He was always talking about how he wanted to have expensive cars and to live on the beach and not have to worry about working.
    One day, Max’s wife Deirdre came into the office and had one of her fights with Max. Deirdre was a nasty spoiled rich hag who’d probably never worked a day in her life. She wore designer clothes and expensive jewelry and always seemed to be coming and going from a manicure or an appointment with her hairdresser. Angela didn’t know what they were fighting about today, but it didn’t matter because it was always about something stupid. Angela heard Deirdre cursing at Max, then Max called her a “fucking bitch” and then, finally, they were both quiet. Max had told Angela that Deirdre was manicdepressive and was on medication, but Angela thought Max was just as pathetic for fighting with her all the time. She was sick — what was his excuse?
    On her way out of the office, Deirdre stopped by Angela’s desk and ordered, “Call Orlando at Orlo and confirm my three o’clock appointment.”
    Deirdre was wearing the same perfume that Max had bought her, but she used so much of it that she stunk upthe whole office. She was overweight, but confident, swinging her big butt, walking on her three-inch pumps, a push-up bra making her chest look like a freak cartoon. Her short hair was dyed a blond that seemed almost orange and she was wearing her usual full face of makeup, like someone had just hurled it at her, letting it stick