The Borzoi Killings Read Online Free Page A

last, with a transparently ingratiating smile for her, Tom Golden closed the window and sped away in his silver car, its tires flinging wet stones and dirt from the unpaved shoulder of the road.
    There were no other cars parked in the woodsy, unsheltered area by the roadside. There was a small shopping mall on the other side of the highway—a Starbucks, the upscale Citarella food store, a fish outlet, and a place selling cheap wicker furniture. The men just stood in the rain. One of them unlocked an old bicycle from a telephone pole and rode west along the highway. The othermen, Juan among them, moved far back from the road so that they could find some shelter under the taller, thicker branches of the leafless trees.
    Joan Richardson stepped down from her SUV. Again pulling the hood of her yellow coat over her head, she walked toward them.
    “It’s still pouring,” she said, raising her voice over the rain and wind. “Who’s coming for all of you?”
    Suddenly they weren’t focusing on her. When she turned, she saw an East Hampton police cruiser. As it slowed, the car tossed up sheets of dirty water from its oversize tires. Every one of the men was intent on the cruiser. They obviously felt menaced, they were leery and quiet and intense. Then the cruiser accelerated and sped away, hissing through the rain.
    She asked again, “Who’s coming for you?”
    Juan said, “People come to pick us up.”
    “How does anybody know you’re here?”
    One of the men had a cell phone. He lifted it for her to see.
    “Friends,” Juan said. “We have friends. We called. They’re coming soon.”
    “I can drive you all home,” she said. “The car’s big.”
    “Thank you, Mrs., but our friends will be here soon.”
    “You can all wait in my car. There’s room.”
    “It’s okay, Mrs.”
    “All right,” she said. “Take a long bath when you get home. Get warm.”
    Imagining Juan naked, powerful, and sinuous as he took a bath, she went back to her SUV and drove off, waving to them while they huddled under the dripping bare trees. It was a cold early spring, and the terrain of woods and underbrush in which they stood looked dismal.
     
    Fifteen minutes after Joan Richardson left, Hector, one of the shuttle crew drivers hired by Tom Golden and other contractors who used day-laborers, pulled up to the edge of the woods. The men climbed into his fifteen-year-old Ford station wagon. In the oversize car, they counted their cash: they had each received thirty dollars in five-dollar bills from Tom Golden. They swore at the cheap motherfucker. Each of them had to give five dollars to Hector for carfare.
    Inside the fetid car, one of the men teased Juan. “Mrs. wants to fuck Juan. Juan, when are you going to fuck Mrs.?”
    Everyone in the car laughed. Since Juan wanted to get along with these men, he laughed too, but said nothing. He thought about Joan Richardson’s ankles.

4.
    It was Brad Richardson who drove to the work gang on the Montauk Highway in Wainscott at six-thirty on Thursday morning. From the open window of his Land Rover, Brad waved Juan over. He remembered the kind man who earlier that week had carried bags of Pepsis to the crew before the rainstorm. A clear dawn, with just a slight chill, was rising through the stark branches of the trees at the roadside. Tom Golden and the other contractors hadn’t yet arrived.
    “Juan, good morning,” Brad called out through the open window.
    Pointing at his chest, Juan asked, “You want me?” Then he walked to the Land Rover’s open window.
    “Juan, my wife and I were talking. We thought about having you come to work for us full-time for a while.”
    Juan hesitated. “I don’t understand.”
    “Do you work for Tom Golden every day?”
    “No.”
    “Good. We need a full-time caretaker and handyman. Do you want to work for us?”
    “You sure?”
    “Of course. Otherwise I wouldn’t ask. Gardening, pruning, some carpentry, raking, whatever you know. Just raking and