Free Angry Buddhist (9781609458867) by Seth Greenland Page A

feeling already pulsing through her intensifies. Why can’t she just dump her margarita on his thick-skulled head? Because she has already drained it. There is the remainder of the pitcher, resting in the pass-through window of her kitchen. But does she want that kind of melodrama? “You said it was open, Hard. The marriage.”
    â€œThat was kind of an exaggeration, maybe. Nadine, look. A lot of people depend on me, not just my wife. They don’t need to know about this. We had a good time and I do care about you.”
    â€œWhat about that job in your office we talked about?” She’s already retreating from the marriage fantasy, trying to tamp her pique into the manageable form of a job request.
    â€œIf you call in a month or so, we’ll see if we can’t get that set up. I’ve got to help Mary Swain get elected first. She’s an important woman.” This assessment pierces Nadine, who looks away and thinks about Hard’s implication.
    Nadine has suffered through enough similar situations to recognize a blow off. What will happen if she calls police headquarters: polite runaround and no job. It wasn’t like there was a quid pro quo when they started sleeping together, but the highhandedness, the dismissal, galls her.
    She rises and walks to the kitchen a little unsteadily, carrying her empty glass with her. There, she fills it with water from the tap and chugs it down. Despite her admonition that he should not expect to be fed, Nadine had prepared a bowl of melon balls before Hard’s arrival, taking the time to scoop out the cantaloupe and honeydew and arrange them artfully in a State of New Mexico commemorative bowl she had purchased on a trip to a tennis clinic in Albuquerque. The melon balls were going to be served with the margaritas but what was the point now? She looks at her recalcitrant soon-to-be-ex-lover and inhales through her nostrils trying to steady her nerves. The post-coital relaxation she was experiencing earlier has vanished. The emptiness she usually feels—the accrual of bad memories, wrong choices and rotten luck—tiptoes back in, and gets comfortable. Taking a salad fork, Nadine spears a melon ball and places it in her mouth. She chews and lets the cool juice wash down her throat. Her stomach gurgles and she remembers she forgot to eat dinner. Glances over and sees the Lean Cuisine teriyaki chicken congealed on a plate next to the microwave.
    Through the pass-through window she can observe Hard facing away from her, sipping his drink. Nadine thinks about the Mexican he claims to have killed while working with Immigration. How he seemed to take on a new persona, Hard Plus, just like the Hard she knew, only stronger, more formidable. And how men like Hard never seem to pay a price for their actions but are allowed to repeat them again and again.
    Taking the bowl of melon balls, Nadine steps out of the kitchen. She regards Hard from the rear, an Indian peeking out from behind a rock at a settler encampment. Sees the bullet head set on broad shoulders. She can discern the outline of the muscles in his back against the tightness of his khaki shirt. Hard seriously Alpha. She can see why he is a leader, a man with a future and not just in law enforcement but to hear him tell it, in politics, too.
    When Nadine stabs him in the neck with the salad fork she misses the jugular vein by less than an inch. Still, there is a lot of blood. He doesn’t scream but leaps from the chair, grabs her wrist and wrestles the weapon from her, cursing. Then he roughly shoves her away. When she staggers back, her heel catches on the cheap knit rug and she falls to the floor where she watches Hard press his palm to his neck for a moment, then hold it in front of him, dripping with blood. Hard walks toward the bathroom as Diablo bounds from the other side of the room and barks like someone has fastened an electroshock ring to his little scrotum and turned the dial to