The Blue Hour by T. Jefferson Parker Read Free Book Online

on
me."
    Colesceau left the kitchen
and walked into his darkened living room. He kept the blinds drawn tightly
against daylight, especially in the infernal Southern California summer. The
far side of the living room had three lawyers' bookcases against the wall—the
kind with the glassed-in shelves and the interior lights so you could see your
books.
    He flipped on the
lights in the middle case.
    Colesceau:
"Another emu egg. The blue one."
    He pointed and Holtz
leaned forward, his nose up close to the glass.
    "Nice."
    "She's producing
more and more these days."
    The egg
producer was Colesceau's mother, Helena. Painting eggs was an old Romanian folk
art and Helena had done hundreds in her life. Most of them ended up here, in
the lawyer's bookcases. They were painted in every color imaginable, and in
many designs and patterns. The older ones were simple. The later ones featured lace, frill, bric-a-brac, bits of yarn and
various textiles, and lately even plastic eyes with pupils that rolled around
inside.
    "Very
nice."
    "It's one of my favorites."
    Colesceau always tried to
endear himself to Holtz, who was a big proponent of what he called "family
values." So Colesceau talked well of his mother whenever he could. In
fact, Colesceau didn't care much for the hollow eggs his mother decorated. They
were morbid and trite. If she hadn't paid for the three bookshelves he would
have boxed them up and left them in the spare bedroom upstairs. But the display
of eggs and his flattering words were a small price to pay for mollifying two
of the most important people in his life. As one of his keepers at Atascadero
always said, you catch more flies with honey, though Colesceau had wondered
then—and still wondered now—why anybody would want to catch flies in the first
place. The doorbell rang.
    "Ah, that must
be Carla!"
    Colesceau went down the
hallway and opened the door. Carla it was, tanned and blond and beaming as
usual, with her prematurely wrinkled face and luminous teeth. Colesceau had
never understood why California women so eagerly courted the damage of the sun.
    "Hello, Moros."
    "Hello, Dr.
Fontana. You are free to come in."
    She nodded,
stepped inside and followed him back toward the living room. He could feel her
behind him like a shadow. He watched her
shake hands with Holtz, the PA eyeing her greedily through the dusty lenses of
his glasses.
    And then, like watching a play again, he
found himself approaching the sofa, Dr. Fontana and Holtz settling into chairs
equidistant from him. He watched himself curl into place on the couch.
Colesceau considered himself catlike. He took off his shoes and pulled his feet
under his legs as he sat.
    Holtz held open a notebook
that Colesceau had never once seen him write one letter in. Pen in fat right
hand.
    Dr. Fontana pulled a tape
recorder from her purse and set it on the coffee table. She smiled at him with
her halogen teeth. Holtz looked at him.
    Careful. Colesceau thought
of the fog along the river Olt and the way it hid your thoughts.
    It was Dr. Fontana who
began. "I think we should start with your general outlook about things,
Mr. Colesceau— Moros. Can you tell us how your job and family life are
progressing, for instance?"
    And it was Colesceau who
answered as he watched and listened. "Yes. Very satisfactory to me. My job
is retail, automotive parts and supplies. I spend many hours on the computer,
to order and check availability. It's not difficult work, but it spends the
hours rapidly."
    Holtz: "He pretty
much runs the place, Carla."
     
    Carla Fontana listened to
Colesceau's faint accent. His diction and syntax were a little off. Romanian,
she knew. Colesceau came to the United States as a political refugee with his
mother when he eight. By age ten he'd killed six dogs in his Anaheim
neighborhood, more suspected. He used Liva-Snaps to get them looking up, then
an ice pick to lance their hearts. His mother caught him with the tails saved
in a box taped to the frame of his