Shoofly Pie & Chop Shop by Tim Downs Read Free Book Online Page A

some kind of plant or rock or limb. Some were lined with sand, others with yellow or gray or chocolate soil. Her eyes came to rest on the terrarium directly before her, not more than twelve inches away. It was covered with glistening sand, with a large flat slab of pink sandstone in the center. It was otherwise empty, except for a shallow dish of water in one corner. Kathryn bent closer to study this strange, lonely landscape. Instinctively, she reached out and tapped on the glass.
    From under the stone a brown desert scorpion skittered out, menacing tail aloft, pincers ready.
    Kathryn drew a sharp breath and leaped away from the glass. She stumbled backward against the screen door, punching herelbow through the stiff wire mesh as it crashed open. She staggered back to the gravel driveway and stood, trembling.
    At the crash, the studious figure in the office at last turned to stare in Kathryn’s direction—but the lab was now completely empty. He rose, taking the business card from the little man’s hand, and stepped out into the lab.
    A moment later Kathryn saw the screen door open. A tall silhouette in the doorway stood silently studying her, carefully rereading the business card in his right hand, then slowly looking her over once again.
    From inside the lab the little man urgently pushed his way past and hurried to her side. “My dear, whatever happened? Are you quite all right? Please, come back inside, out of this dreadful sun.”
    “If it’s all the same to you, could we speak outside?”
    She turned to look at the figure still standing in the doorway. He was holding her business card at eye level now, still glancing from the card to Kathryn and back again, as if he had been handed the driver’s license of a bald-headed man from New Jersey.
    It was the little man who broke the silence. “Where are my manners? Ms. Guilford, may I present Dr. Nicholas Polchak. Dr. Polchak, allow me to introduce—”
    “Kathryn Guilford,” the tall figure interrupted, “Central Carolina Bank and Trust, Commercial … Mortgage … Capital.” He said the last three words slowly, as if to emphasize the disparity between the dignified title and the disheveled woman who stood before him.
    “As I told Dr. Tedesco, I’m not here about banking.”
    “What exactly are you here about?”
    “I’ve come to talk to you about a matter of utmost importance,” she said with all the solemnity she could muster, but the words sounded ridiculous even to her.
    He glanced at the curling shards of screen wire. “Were you in too big a hurry to open the door?” He looked at the little man beside her. “Teddy, we need to fix this. We don’t want any local dermestids paying us a visit.”
    At last the tall figure stepped from the doorway, and for the first time Kathryn could see him in detail. He was lean and angular, with very large hands and feet. He wore a white ribbed polyester shirt with a large open collar, which hung open over a blue andgreen Fubu T-shirt. Below, a pair of enormous olive green cargo shorts overshadowed two alabaster limbs that protruded into a pair of ancient leather thongs.
    He looked about Kathryn’s age. His head was rather large and shaped like an inverted triangle. It narrowed from a wide brow to a strong chin with a deep dimple pressed into the center. His skin was fair and smooth, the skin of a man who spent far too much time under fluorescent light. His hair was dark and straight and his hairline receded slightly on both sides, emphasizing the triangularity of his features. It was a handsome face for the most part, Kathryn thought. She glanced quickly over his features, taking an instant accounting of each, but came abruptly to a halt at his eyes.
    He wore the largest, thickest eyeglasses Kathryn had ever seen, which so distorted his eyes that they seemed to float behind the lenses like two soft, colorless orbs. They reminded Kathryn of the pickled eggs that eternally floated in a jar beside the cash register