Grist 01 - The Four Last Things by Timothy Hallinan Read Free Book Online Page B

weathered nose that, when it occurs in fur-bearing species, causes taxidermists to look for new materials; Listener Simpson was about twenty-four and very pretty. Listener Dooley was snoring gently, which made it easier to follow my instincts and choose Listener Simpson.
    “Welcome to the present,” Listener Simpson said. Her eyes were a disconcerting shade of ice-blue. Behind her hung a beautifully lit color photograph of a woman and a little girl of eleven or twelve. The little girl’s blond hair cascaded down over the shoulders of her immaculate white dress.
    “It’s kind of hard to escape from the present,” I said. “People spend millions trying to do it. Looks like Listener Dooley’s managed.”
    Listener Simpson’s cool blue eyes flicked down to a photocopied sheet in front of her and her voice cooled a couple of degrees. “Are you expected?” she asked.
    “Anything can happen in the present. ‘Expected’ is sort of future tense, don’t you think?”
    “I think that you don’t understand the present,” she said without looking up. “Everything is here and everything is now. Could I have your name, please?”
    “Grist,” I said. “But you won’t find it there. I’m looking for Skippy Miller.”
    “Mr. Miller is here.”
    “And now. Can someone tell him I’m also here? Now?”
    Her eyes engaged mine and held them. “That depends,” she said, “on what you want, and on whether he’ll want to see you.”
    “He’ll see me whether he wants to or not.” She didn’t look away, and neither did I. “He owes me a few. A six-pack, at least.”
    “He’s in Listening,” she said. She was still staring straight into my eyes. “He won’t be free until seven-fifteen, just before the Revealing.”
    “That’s about an hour.”
    “As you say.” It was one of the most noncommittal responses I’d ever provoked. “Whom shall I say wants to see him?”
    “Whom? Simeon Grist.”
    She turned a pad of paper toward me. It said public church business at the top. “Could you please print that?” she said.
    “Hell,” I said, “I could probably even write it.”
    “We’d prefer printing.” She gave me a tiny public-relations smile. “For the sake of clarity.”
    “Ah, clarity,” I said, doing as I was told, “we worship at thy shrine.”
    Listener Simpson pushed a button at her right hand and the door behind her opened to admit a clear-eyed fifteen-year-old girl wearing tight black jeans, a blouse of Chinese-checker red, and a pair of seventy-dollar Reeboks. She surreptitiously shifted a wad of chewing gum to her cheek as she approached the table. Simpson scrawled something on the bottom of the page I’d printed my name on, glanced at her watch, and noted the time in the lower-right-hand corner. “This is for Mr. Miller,” she said. “He’ll come out of Listening in 12A in forty-six minutes. He’s to choose whether he wishes to come here or not.”
    “Yes, Listener,” the girl said around her gum. “Should I make a copy before I deliver it?”
    “Of course,” Listener Simpson said a little peevishly. “If it’s not in the files it doesn’t exist,” she added with the air of one repeating a well-worn dictum. The girl didn’t look particularly grateful for the advice. She let out a world-weary sigh and left the room as though she were happy to be out of it, cracking her gum as the door closed behind her.
    “Kids,” Listener Simpson said to herself. Listener Dooley emitted a sympathetic snore.
    “You were probably like that once,” I said. “All energy and no direction.”
    She gave me a grave look and then shook her head. “I was worse,” she said. “I don’t know why nobody killed me.”
    “Children seem to be important to the church. Kids as couriers, the little girl on the poster behind you.”
    “Children are important to every Church. Like them or not, they’re the messengers to the future. ‘Suffer the little children to come unto me.’ Jesus was only one of