Read Online Rage Factor by Chris Rogers - Free Book Online

conversation.
    But Brenda wasn’t doing much talking. They’d taken their usual booth in the smoking section. Although Brenda was trying to shuck the habit, and Dixie’s one childhood attempt had made her sick enough to swear off for life, their corner niche was tradition.
    Simulated padded leather walls and plush wine-red carpet muffled the hum of a hundred conversations. Neon beer signs provided the dim lighting. Brenda stared at a Corona bottle on the bar in front of her, alternately drinking from it, sucking on a lime wedge balanced on its rim, and scraping at the bottle’s label.
    Dixie’s efforts to lift the prosecutor’s spirits had struck out. Time for some ass-kicking.
    “How many open cases are stacked on your desk right now?” she asked.
    “Fifteen. Maybe twenty.”
    “How many more assault charges you figure were filed today?”
    “What’s this, Monday? Forty or so, mostly family violence. It’ll be over a hundred before midnight.” Brenda’s fingernail scraped a long tear through the Corona label.
    “And how many of those will land on your desk?”
    “What’s your point, Dixie? We both know there’s no shortage of work to be done.”
    “Precisely. Yet here you sit moaning in your Corona after losing a single case.”
    Lifting her chin, Brenda swept a somber gaze around the crowded room. Dixie recognized many of the men and women from courtrooms and plea-bargaining tables.
    The prosecutor’s gaze rested for a beat on a lone man at the bar, fortyish, attractive, and nearly bald. When he raised his glass, Brenda nodded curtly, an odd wistfulness softening her coarse features. An instant later the effect was gone, and Brenda’s gaze hurried past.
    “Look at them.” she said. “How many men do you think will go home later and beat up their wives? Or discipline their children? Or pick up a prostitute and knock her around awhile before kicking her out of the car? Or stop at the liquor store going home, decide hell, why not have some fun with the owner’s granddaughter—”
    “If you’re talking about the Ramirez case—”
    “The two SOBs who raped that child are going to walk.”
    “Maybe not. Mr. Ramirez gave a good description before he died.”
    “Not good enough. And the girl’s too terrified to ID them. The dickhead cop who was first at the scene made sure of it.”
    Dixie sighed. “Is that the game we’re playing now? Male bashing?”
    “You think I’m wrong?”
    “I think your viewpoint is skewed. As my sainted adoptive mother would say, ‘Even men and barbed wire have their good points.’”
    Brenda grimaced and took another swallow of her beer.
    “There
are
plenty of good men in the world,” Dixie persisted. “Only, you won’t find them in the case folders stacked on your desk—”
    “Hell, Dixie, it’s not just men. I had a woman in my office last week left her month-old baby in a shopping mall storage room while she went to work. Said she didn’t have money for a sitter. Two months ago we found a seven-year-old girl chained in a bathroom. Dirty, starved, scared. Sores all over. Never been to school a day—could barely talk. Three other kids in the family, all going to school, playing with friends. Father and mother both had good jobs. A normal American household. Except nobody in the neighborhood,
nobody
, knew about that fourth kid, chained in a bathroom, fed table scraps, treated worse than you’d treat a dog. An entire
family
, Dixie, in collusion against one poor child.” Brenda pushed her beer aside. “How does such a thing happen?”
    Dixie had seen worse during her ten years as a prosecutor, before she quit trying to understand.
    “You need some balance to your perspective,” she replied. “Get away for a few weeks. Spend a month in the sunshine. Find a brown-skinned island gigolo and get gloriously laid.”
    “Ha!” Brenda’s sudden smile flickered to the balding man at the bar. Her spontaneous hoot turned to a chuckle, then to roaring