A Shroud for Jesso by Peter Rabe Read Free Book Online

been any glue.
    It made sense now, why Kator hadn’t been interested enough to ask where Joe Snell was holed up. Jesso had led them right to him. They had kept out of the way, watching, and after he’d gone they had walked right in, taken the thing that Snell had hidden inside his toupé, and left. Snell could have died from fright and high fever. His eyes were open, but sightless now.
    It made sense. It made even more sense when Jesso got back upstairs. He ran to the back room, where he found the old man in his wheel chair. His daughter was wiping a wet rag over a welt on Bonetti’s cheek, and neither of them bothered to look at him. They must have started to tussle in the store. There were glass beads and fancy buttons all over the floor, some of them broken, others just lying there and staring up from the floor, the way Snell was doing.
    The thought didn’t stay long with Jesso because then a hard noise jolted the back of his head and all the bright buttons came rushing up to his face.
    When Jesso came around it happened slowly. It was so gradual there was hardly any surprise when he realized how bad it was.
    Two men in the front, one in the back right next to him. He didn’t know the kid that was driving. Every so often a light would flash by the car and Jesso could see nothing but the man’s silhouette. The other two had been around since Gluck had started in his job.
    Gluck had made it. Jesso was out. He felt so miserable that the thought made hardly any impression; at first, that is.
    “Is he still out?” said the front seat.
    “Sure. When I clip ‘em—”
    “Save it. We’re hitting traffic. Push him on the floor so he won’t sit up sudden-like and make a commotion.”
    Jesso heard every word of it and knew what was coming. When the man next to him pushed at his shoulder, Jesso rolled off the seat to the floor like a limp corpse. The jar to his head almost made him scream and his face contorted with pain, but it was dark down there and nobody saw it. The longer they didn’t know he was awake, the better for him. The better the chance—and then he realized there was no chance. There was no chance because he’d never prepared for this, had never thought it would go this far. So at first Gluck had come along to get under his skin. Nothing important. Nothing that ever looked as if life and death were in the scales. What Jesso had forgotten was that life and death didn’t have much weight.
    “He still out?”
    “Yeah. We almost there?”
    “Almost.”
    “Close your window. I can’t stand the smell of that river.”
    “I gotta get my pass ready. Here comes the gate.”
    He’d forgotten that a man like Gluck didn’t have to ask whether anybody wanted to claim the body.
    The car slowed to a stop and somebody said, “O.K. Keep left till you hit Pier Twenty-eight.” Then the car moved again.
    Pier 28. That was part of Gluck’s section. It didn’t make sense; this wasn’t the way they did it. Had Kator mentioned Pier 28? The brakes squealed and then the car doors came open. Jesso could smell the stink from the river, hear it lap. They grabbed him by the arms and started to pull. His knees dragged over the concrete.
    Make his move now? What move? Wait. Wait and figure this thing. He stayed limp, eyes closed, head lolling down, and listened for the lap of the river. There were other sounds: other feet walking, the chug of an engine, and a steady splashing of water that poured from someplace into the river. But all that Jesso could see, carefully, was the concrete close underneath and the legs moving on either side. When they stopped they didn’t drop him, but held onto his arms.
    “Grab his legs. We’ll carry him up.”
    One man let go and Jesso swung down sideways. He caught sight of the trousered legs farther ahead, the crease sharp as a knife. That was Gluck. Jesso got his eyes closed just in time.
    “You needn’t bother,” said the voice. “Just drop him.”
    When they dragged him up the