Bluebottle by James Sallis Read Free Book Online Page B

eyes, afraid it might all go away again.
    Our biweekly garbage truck lugged into place out front. I swung legs over and stepped to the window. A lithe young man in
     khaki overalls leapt from the back, took up our bin and emptied it, then in what seemed a single continuous motion let the
     bin fall and, whistling to signal the driver to pull out, leapt back onto the truck.
    It's possible, given the circumstances, that I may never have seen anything more beautiful.
    Pillowlike clouds drifted above the boarded-up mansion opposite. Uniformed children with backpacks, alone and in straggling
     groups, trod towards school. Bicyclists young and white, old and black, whirred by.
    All of it unspeakably lovely.
    Look at the same thing day after day, you no longer see it, it goes away. To see again, one way or another you have to go away. Then when you come back, for just a while, your eyes work again.
    It's a lesson I took to heart, one I'd carry with me the rest of my life.
    "T HING IS ," Don told me, "no one in the department much cares who did Eddie Bone. We all figure hey, one less maggot we gotta worry about."
    We'd met at a hole-in-the-wall po-boy shop on Magazine, three or four mostly unused and unwashed tables and you didn't want
     to look too closely at the counter or grill, but the sandwiches were killer. When our order was called,
    Don stepped up to a clump of pumped-up kids in hairnets and bandanas hanging out by the coimter thinking about coming on as
     hard cases. Don just stood there waiting. They looked at his face a moment or two and stepped aside.
    "Let me put it this other way. Shrimp, right?" He handed mine across. Shreds of lettuce hanging out like Spanish moss off
     trees in Audubon Park. 'They've got means, since the case is still officially open. And they've got opportunity. What they
     don't have is motivation."
    He bit into his roast-beef po-boy. Gravy squirted onto paper plate, table, chin, shirt, tie.
    "There's really no investigation under way, then."
    "The matter's 'not being actively pursued' according to department jargon, right. We get fifteen, twenty homicides a month,
     Lew, more during summer months. When all our ducks line up—when the city's not cutting back again, none of our people get
     shot or sick, none of them has family problems or turns out a drunk—we've got six detectives to the shift."
    Don finished off his sandwich and drank the last of his iced tea.
    "Hey, you want a beer?"
    "Ever know me not to?"
    I finished my own sandwich as Don went back to the counter. No hesitation this time. The kids saw him get up and stepped away.
    We took our beers outside. There were a couple of picnic benches each side of the street corner, but like the tables inside
     they rarely saw use. Most people just came up and ordered through the window, takeaway. Don and I claimed the table furthest
     off Magazine. Sat there watching the noontime rush. Not much of a rush compared to other major cities, but it's ours.
    "You get much sleep?" Don said, reminding me that he'd dropped me off at LaVerne's only a few short hours ago.
    I shook my head.
    "Me either. Hard to remember when I did. Three in the morning I'm laying there trying to figure out if it's because of the
     alcohol I'm not sleeping, or if alcohol's the only reason I catch any sleep at all."
    Bolted into cement, our table sat beneath a tree that birds of every sort seemed particularly to favor—perhaps for its pungent,
     oily smell? Don leaned on one ham to wipe pasty greenish-white birdshit off the seat of his pants. The shop provided rolls
     of paper towels instead of napkins. This being one of Don's regular stops, he'd ripped off several panels when he picked up
     the beers.
    "Verne okay?"
    I nodded.
    "Good. You tell her I said hello."
    I nodded, and we had a few more sips of Jax.
    "That mother of yours is a piece of work, Lew."
    "She is that."
    "She just plain hate white folks or what?"
    Though God knows the last thing I wanted to do was make