Read Online Vixen by Bill Pronzini - Free Book Online Page B

it. You understand me, Kenny?”
    â€œâ€¦ Yes.”
    â€œAll right. Now get out of here. Go to your room and stay there.”
    In his room, he lay on the bed staring up at the ceiling. His hands felt damp, clammy. His cheek still burned where she’d slapped him.
    Forget about it, she’d said. But how could he?
    A gun. Jesus, what was she doing with a gun?

 
    9
    JAKE RUNYON
    It was a couple of minutes past seven on Wednesday evening when Runyon pulled up in front of Bryn’s brown-shingle house on Moraga in the outer Sunset. Lights glowed behind the front windows, which meant she and Bobby were home now. She never wasted electricity when the two of them were out. He scooped the shopping bag from the passenger seat, went up and rang the bell.
    Bryn opened the door, evidently without checking through its peephole. She was smiling, but the smile dimmed when she saw Runyon. Expecting someone else, he thought, and her first words confirmed it.
    â€œJake. What are you doing here?”
    â€œDropping off Bobby’s birthday present.”
    â€œOh, you remembered. Well, he’ll be pleased.” Not her so much, though, he thought; the smile was almost gone now. “But you should have called first. You always have before.”
    â€œI did call,” Runyon said, “around five-thirty. No answer. I thought you might have taken the boy out for an early dinner to celebrate.”
    â€œNo, we were at Safeway. Why didn’t you leave a message on my cell?”
    â€œDidn’t think of it. Didn’t think you’d mind if I just dropped in.”
    â€œI don’t, only…” She shook her head. “Never mind. Come in.”
    Inside, in the hallway light, he saw that she wasn’t as casually dressed as she usually was when she intended to stay in. Starched white blouse, green patterned skirt, a cameo locket at her throat, and a gold bracelet on one wrist. Ash-blond hair neatly combed and decorated with a ribbon that matched her skirt. Lipstick, too, and a little eye makeup. The scarf covering the stroke-frozen left side of her face was the paisley one Bobby had picked out, in Runyon’s company, for her last birthday.
    He said, “If you’re going out again, I won’t keep you.”
    â€œWe’re having dinner here. I’d invite you to stay, but … well, it’s not a good time.”
    â€œCompany coming?”
    â€œAs a matter of fact, yes.” Four-beat. “Robert.”
    Runyon was silent.
    â€œHe called and asked if he could come,” Bryn said with a defensive note in her voice. “He has presents, too, and after all, he is the boy’s father.”
    And the man who had divorced Bryn when she suffered her crippling and disfiguring stroke, the man who had used his attorney’s influence to take Bobby away from her and into the clutches of the unstable woman who’d been his mistress, the man she claimed to hate and had fought bitterly, with Runyon’s help, to regain custody.
    He said only, “Sure.”
    â€œRobert’s been nice to the boy, much kinder than when Bobby was living with him.” The defensiveness was more pronounced now. “It’s hard to believe, but he’s changed since Francine was murdered. Oh, he’s still arrogant, still the typical lawyer, but the nastiness and cruelty … they seem to be gone.”
    â€œShowing signs of humanity.”
    â€œYes, exactly. And he truly loves Bobby, cares about his future.”
    â€œNever much doubt of that.”
    â€œSo when we … So I didn’t see any reason not to invite him to stay for dinner.”
    Runyon said, “No need to justify it to me.”
    â€œI wasn’t justifying, I was simply stating a fact.”
    â€œAll right.”
    â€œI’m not getting involved with him again, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
    It wasn’t. “None of my business in any