Serpents in the Cold by Thomas O'Malley Read Free Book Online

the kitchen, where the clock said it was a little after five thirty. He put on the coffee, and showered and shaved. He drank his coffee and watched through the window as the street brightened. When the sun was barely above the bay and the ice-packed cars along the street seemed to glow blue and silver and the lights in other houses across the street came on, he took the car’s battery off the kitchen table and carried it outside.

9
    _________________________
    Scollay Square, Downtown
    AT THE SOUND of the door buzzer Dante came up out of sleep hard and fast, still in the panic of a terrible dream. His fingers covered in blood, poised above the piano keys. His knuckles were shattered: bone showed through ripped skin. In the dark, voices urged him to play on! Give us another song! and he continued, blood spattering across the keys. It took him a moment to realize where he was, and then the buzzer sounded again and he knew it was Cal and that he was waiting for him. He got up from the bed, and wormlike spots flashed and floated in his vision. He stood and had to wait for the dizziness to pass. He tongued his teeth and grimaced; the inside of his mouth seemed to be lined with sticky cotton. He stood shakily in the bathroom and urinated.
    When he was done, he put on his shirt and sweater and coat, rummaged in his bureau for a photograph of Sheila. There were several in the top drawer, ones of him with Margo and Sheila at their side, another of them all in the park, and he paused momentarily as he looked at the photo. Sheila in sunglasses and a light summer dress decorated in pastels. That had been taken on the Common. The sun was at her back, and it shimmered through the thin material and showed the outline of her body. If he hadn’t already torn the pictures so that only Sheila remained, his wife would have been standing to her right—she’d worn a blue dress that day—and holding the wicker basket with the remains of their picnic. He took that one and the one from his wedding and went out to the car.
    Cal’s gray Fleetline idled at the curb, white smoke steaming from its exhaust. Cal looked up and rolled down his window. Hatless, his black hair appeared unruly and disheveled, but Dante noticed the V of his coat, the press of his white shirt, the immaculate tight knot of his tie, his face gleaming from a fresh shave. Still, he looked tired and pale, and Dante imagined that he had barely slept.
    “We’ll go to where she died first,” Cal said.
    Dante sighed and his shoulders drooped unconsciously. He absently fingered the brim of his hat.
    “I thought you said the cops already have it under wraps.”
    “Most cops can’t even find their own dicks to piss.”
    Inside the car the air was warm and moist, like a wool coat warming on a radiator after the rain. On the dashboard Cal had coffee and doughnuts waiting. The steam from the coffee fogged the windows. Cal handed Dante a cup. “Here. You look like shit.”
    Dante took the coffee and pulled the photographs from his coat pocket. “So that we can show them around,” he said, and Cal glanced at them as he sipped his coffee.
    “That’s good.”
    He pressed on the accelerator and the car moved into the Square. He wrangled with the clutch, and they eased into a lane of traffic, moved through an intersection, and made their way onto the ramp bound for the South Shore. Occasional glimpses of the sea, iron blue and flat, whitecaps rippling across the surface, appeared through buildings to their left. Traffic was light, and within minutes Savin Hill rose up on their left and then the bay opened up before them and the gas tanks before Tenean Beach loomed stark and gray. Dante glanced over his shoulder. Cal’s hat sat neatly in the center of the backseat, next to a stack of maps and city ordinances and a police slicker. When he looked back, Cal was smiling grimly, squinting through the beads of rain streaking the windshield, the sheen of black road before them. After a moment