Read Dying for a Taste for Free Online Page A

appreciate your coming by, though.” He stepped back and then spotted Buster’s head hanging out of the driver’s side window of my car. “Buster!” he cried out, his frown becoming a broad smile. “How’s my boy?”
    Tony trotted across the road, and the dog licked him frantically as he buried his head in its tawny coat. He opened the door, and Buster bounded out and began jumping up onto him.
    “Out of the street, boy.” Buster followed him back to the front yard, still jumping up and trying to plant wet kisses on Tony.
    “I was wondering, actually, if you’d be able to take him in. I can’t, and—”
    “Of course I can,” he said, crouching down to let the dog have its way with his face. “Me and Buster, we need each other now. Don’t we, boy?” He rubbed the dog’s back for a moment and then stood up. “C’mon inside.”
    Buster ran up the front steps and pushed ahead of Tony through the front door, and we all went into the kitchen. The dog headed immediately for the bowls sitting in the corner and began lapping up water. He was obviously at home here. “You want some coffee?” Tony asked.
    “Sure.”
    As he found mugs and poured us each a cup, I examined the photos held up by magnets on the fridge: Tony with Letta at the beach; Tony on a boat with a much taller guy, both holding up big fish; two teenage boys sitting with Tony and the same tall guy in stadium bleachers.
    “That’s my son T. J. with his cousin and my brother,” Tony said, noticing my look. “It was taken a few years back.”
    “Oh. Does your son live here in town?”
    “No, he lives over the hill, where his mom is. He’s in college now, at San Jose State.”
    Feigning more interest than I had, I leaned over to take a closer look at the picture. The two boys were wearing sports jerseys with the number ten emblazoned on the front and proudly displaying their foot-long hot dogs and mammoth cups of Pepsi for the camera. I couldn’t help noticing that the blue jersey did a much better job of hiding the spilled ketchup than the white one.
    “I can sure tell which is T. J.,” I said, tapping the stain on the white jersey with my finger. “He looks just like you. Your brother, though, not so much.”
    Tony smiled wryly and handed me my coffee. “Thanks, I guess.” I could hear traces of his New Jersey accent coming out. “Here, let’s go sit down.” He led me into a wood-paneled den and nodded for me to have a seat on the couch. Buster hopped up next to me and stretched full out, his head nice and comfy on the pillows.
    One wall was almost completely covered by an enormous flat-screen TV, and the others were decorated with beer signs and various sports and fishing memorabilia. As I eyed the orange-and-black “San Francisco Giants: 2010 World Series Champs” banner strung up above an enormous stuffed sailfish, I remembered that it was that season that Letta had brought Buster home with her from Mexico. And that, being a big Giants fan, she’d decided to name the puppy after their spunky rookie catcher, Buster Posey.
    “The cops were here earlier,” Tony said as he lowered himself into a black leather recliner facing the TV. He was several inches shy of six feet but carried himself as if trying to appear larger than he really was. “I was there at the restaurant, you know, Sunday, the afternoon before . . . it happened. I’d brought by some flowers—small branches from my ornamental cherry tree, actually—to use on the tables. Anyway, I guess it’s not surprising they wanted to talk to me.”
    “Yeah, they wanted to talk to me, too.”
    He nodded and ran a hand through his curly, dark hair. I guessed his age to be around sixty, but although it was thinning at the temples, his hair showed no signs of graying. Tony leaned back in his chair, closed his eyes, and grimaced. “Sweet Jesus,” he said, eyes still shut. It looked like he was trying his best not to cry.
    I didn’t say anything, letting him get control