Last Call Read Online Free Page B

the house. But after such a narrow escape Hayden insists he must get Joey to a made-up baseball practice and they quickly exit.
    On the way to the parking lot Joey is lavish in his praise for Hayden’s speech. “That was incredible, Grandpa, especially the part about the sharks. In fact, it sounded as if I heard it somewhere else.”
    “I stole a few bits and pieces from Robert Shaw in
Jaws
.” If Diana knew that he and Joey rented scary movies on rainy afternoons when she was at work she would disconnect the VCR.
    “Well, they bought the whole story!” Joey crows.
    “It was really wrong o’ me, Joey. I just didn’t know what else to do. T. J. caught me by surprise and before you knew it—”
    “But they
loved
it. It made them feel better.”
    Hayden knows that’s true, but still worries about setting a bad example for his grandson. On the other hand, sometimes you have to bend a rule or two in life, and that isn’t such a bad thing for a young person to learn.
    “It did seem to lessen their sorrow a wee bit,” he agrees philosophically. The way Hayden sees it, no matter what did or didn’t happen in the South China Sea, the poor bastard probably performed some unsung good deeds along the way and so it all balances out in the end. And death is the end, no two ways about it.
    chapter four
    B y the time the funeral duo exits the second reception across town in Canarsie, it’s late afternoon, and time to change back into their game clothes and head for home. Hayden pulls up to Canarsie Beach Park, overlooking Jamaica Bay, where bronze plaques along the pier explain the varieties of birds indigenous to the area and a golden age club in matching T-shirts storms the waterfront with arms pumping and backs slightly hunched against the breeze.
    Suddenly a well-formed young woman spilling out of a skimpy orange bikini top and cutoff denim shorts struts toward the boardwalk from the back of the parking lot in gold plastic high-heeled sandals. “Look, look,” Hayden nudges Joey with his elbow. “She’s taking the twins for a walk.”
    Joey turns and stares at her with appreciation in his wide blue eyes. He tries to let out a low whistle but doesn’t have the technique down yet. The object of their admiration gives the MacBrides a smile as she passes them by to join a muscular man carrying a cooler.
    Hayden and Joey change back into their casual clothes in the men’s room behind the outdoor ice cream stand and then buy large pistachio cones with chocolate sprinkles for the ride home. “We’d like sugar cones, along with an eight-by-ten glossy of yourself,” Hayden says to the woman serving them, causing her to giggle with delight.
    They take a shortcut through Seaview Village, driving past block after block of ranch-style and split-level houses that feel more like a middle-class suburb than Brooklyn. Joey looks longingly at the children bicycling and playing kickball in the neighborhood’s quiet streets. They serve as a painful reminder that as much as Joey adores Hayden, he wouldn’t mind having a friend his own age so they could trade baseball cards and play video games. They’re two of his favorite things, and his grandfather knows absolutely nothing about either one.
    Before entering the town house Hayden insists on a quick debriefing session to ensure that they have their story straight—who played, who won, what the score was, what they ate, and so forth. Rigorous rehearsal is mandatory. “Your mother,” Hayden is fond of reminding his grandson, “possesses the cross-referencing skills of a lifetime employee at the Library of Congress.”
    It’s during moments like this that Hayden feels a twinge of guilt—coaching an innocent boy to lie and thereby setting a bad example. If Joey grows up to be a mobster Hayden is convinced it will be entirely his fault. Though if his grandson becomes a funeral director or a caterer that will probably be his doing as well. However, he absolves himself in true