Read Online The Nomination by William G. Tapply - Free Book Online

white, curled and creased, faded and discolored. Moran guessed there were a couple hundred photos in that shoebox.
    He dumped them out on the bed and sat there sipping his coffee, looking at the photos one at a time.
    She looked a hell of a lot better than Janis Joplin back then. Bunny Brubaker with her electric guitar, wearing very tight jeans and a T-shirt. A little heavier and curvier then, but always with those nice tits, the way he remembered her.
    Bunny stretched out on a blanket in a little bikini, leaving nothing to the imagination. Bunny at various ages with other people—a young teenager, before Moran knew her, with an older couple, Mom and Dad, maybe. With a serious young man with a receding hairline and rimless glasses. Bunny with a bunch of women about her age. Bunny holding an infant.
    Bunny’s life in a shoebox.
    And, yeah, there were some shots of Bunny and Eddie together. Her in her crisp Red Cross uniform, him in his camo pants, no shirt, both of them holding bottles of beer, grinning drunkenly into the camera. And the two of them in bathing suits on the beach, palm trees in the background.
    Looking terribly young, except for that weariness in their eyes. A long time ago.
    And photos of Bunny and Eddie with Larrigan and his girl, that scrawny Vietnamese chick, Larrigan’s little hooker. A child, really. Couldn’t have been more than thirteen or fourteen. No tits, hardly any hips on her. Looked malnourished. Eddie never really knew where Larrigan had found her. He liked ’em young, that was for sure. Li An. That was her name.
    Larrigan had a big bush of curly black hair in those old photos, and a floppy mustache and sideburns half way down his face. Back then he still had two eyes. In several of the shots, he wore a drunken shit-eating grin and his arm was slung possessively around the shoulders of his little native chick, that Li An. A couple shots of Li An and the baby.
    Old Larrigan. Who’da thought he’d ever be nominated for the Supreme Court?
    Moran hadn’t gotten Bunny to say much. She didn’t want to talk about it, and he figured he better not push her. Last thing Larrigan would want was for Bunny Brubaker to suspect something.
    But there was no doubt she remembered all of it.
    He thought of taking the photos, then thought better of it. After seeing Eddie Moran, Bunny might decide to go to her shoebox, fish out the old pictures, and reminisce about the old days. Best for now if she found them right where she kept them. Best not to arouse any suspicions.
    So he put all the photos back into the shoebox and wiped all the dust off it. Bunny wouldn’t notice the absence of dust on the box if she happened to take it out of her closet. But she’d certainly notice finger smudges on a dust-covered box.
    He replaced the shoebox exactly where he’d found it on the closet shelf behind the pile of sweaters.
    Then he went through the dumpy little house again, to make sure he hadn’t missed anything. Which he hadn’t. Eddie Moran was a pro.
    He ended up in the kitchen. He turned off the electric coffeepot. He thought of leaving Bunny a note but couldn’t think of anything to say.
    He went out through the side door, holding his breath as he hurried through the stinking carport, climbed into his rented gray Camry, and headed north on Route 1 for the airport in Miami.
    He’d have to give some thought to what he wanted to tell Larrigan before he called him.

CHAPTER 4
    S imone Bonet sipped her herbal tea and gazed out through the big window at the bright rushing ribbon of water beyond the meadow at the foot of her hill. The afternoon sun was warm here in her glassed-in west-facing porch, and she had pushed the blanket off her legs. She had to be careful of overheating.
    Soon the new leaves would fill the gaps in the maples and willows and the pretty stream would disappear behind the foliage, but now, in the middle of April, although the rising sap and