On Archimedes Street by Jefferson Parrish Read Free Book Online Page A

inviting, and he let himself stroll slowly in the welcoming shade.
    The twining live oaks gave the working-class houses a muted grandeur. Most, Ed noticed, had two doors giving onto a porch, and all were elevated on brick piers or a brick foundation with lacy wrought-iron porthole-looking things. Most porches stretched uninterrupted across the house, but some had a waist-high partition dividing the porch area in two. All the houses looked well tended, and the shade, the birdsong, and the laziness of the scene calmed and soothed him. “Mother Cabrini,” he said, “this looks like a refuge for the soul.”
    Then Ed noticed an anomaly: a house like the others, but only one room wide, with a single door instead of two. And as he looked more closely, he noticed the sign: “Help Wanted. Inquire Within.” Mother Cabrini, please. As he stepped into the miniature front yard, a black-and-white ticked dog sprang up to greet him, tail in rotary motion. Ed noticed he had a slight limp, but that didn’t stop the dog from jumping up all over him. Ed bent down and scratched behind a floppy ear, saying, “’Sup, boy? Something wrong with that footsel?” The dog was in a wagging frenzy.
    Behind a shutter, Wailin’ Elwood the Tree Man watched the scene. With hunger and desperation in his eye, he concentrated intently on the man petting Larceny. Life circumstances had made Elwood a preternaturally keen observer, but he trusted Larceny’s instincts as much as his own. The man had passed the first test.
    Elwood made his initial assessment. Dressed by the Little Sisters, so must have been sleeping rough. Not a dime in his pocket. Desperate as me.
    “Nothin’ wrong wit’ dat cayoodle. He jes’ scratch his pad. Limp be gone in a day or two.” Elwood stepped out noiselessly from behind the shutter.
    Ed, startled, jumped up from his crouch over the dog. The man had moved so silently that Ed was caught unawares. “Er—I saw the sign.”
    The man had a secret, Elwood could see. Was he the one?
    “Sleepin’ rough lately?”
    Ed was stunned. “Er—yes. I could really use a job.”
    College guy , Elwood registered. “How the Little Sistahs are?”
    Ed flushed. “What kind of job is it?”
    “Oh, helpah. I the tree man. Also cook some for pawties. An’ play the piana on Sattaday mornin’ in the fawmers’ mawket.”
    “Tree man? An arborist?”
    “Dat too,” Elwood deadpanned. “You know anythin’ ’bout shapin’ trees an’ bushes an’ dat shit?”
    “Er….”
    “Don’t hafta lie.”
    “Well, not much,” Ed said. And then in a rush: “But—give me a chance—I’ll do anything you want. If I can’t do it, I’ll learn it.”
    “You look fit enough.” Bought those muscles at a gym, but a few weeks of tree work would start putting real muscle on him. “Ain’t rocket science.”
    Please, Mother Cabrini! “How did you know about sleeping rough and the Little Sisters?”
    “Ain’t rocket science, needer. See dat shirt? Bin wash’ more often dan your teeth, an’ you wash dem after every meal, doncha, Poily? When you ain’t drunk.”
    “Oh.”
    “An’ dat ol’ shirt bin press’ bettah dan a weddin’ dress. An’ darn’. Wit’ stitches so tiny like you see on a bap-dismal robe. Dem’s nun stitches. An’ why the Little Sistahs dressin’ you? Dey eeder foun’ you on the street or more prolly when dey toin you loose from the lockup. An’ you on the street or in the lockup ’cuz you drunk, right? An’ broke. Else why you applyin’ for dis shit job?”
    Shit. Just what I need. A regular blue-collar Sherlock Holmes.
    “So—’bout the job,” Elwood continued. “Can’t pay you right away. Mebbe in two weeks. But I can feed you, an’ you can bunk here, an’”—he appraised the size of the man—“you can wear my clothes. We both six foot. Got plenty clothes. An’ you can soak one of my toot’brushes in Listerine.” Then, finally: “I buy you a razor.”
    Could it be as easy as this? Thank