Straight Cut by Madison Smartt Bell Read Free Book Online Page B

Someone sitting close to the tree remonstrated with them in Chinese. I could see the star-shaped shuriken embedded in the tree bark to half the length of their razor points. One of the boys retrieved them and the group moved down the way again. No threat. I looked back into the book.
… half the time I sleep, the other half I dream. I never sleep when I dream, for that would be a pity, for sleeping is the highest accomplishment of genius.
    This had the unlooked-for effect of making me remember my own dream and I got up and walked out of the park in hopes of getting away from it. I was going south and angling toward Broadway. But to the rhythm of my feet I was hearing the dreary little singsong which begins a few pages later.
If you marry you will regret it; if you do not marry you will also regret it… . [repeat]
Hang yourself, you will regret it; do not hang yourself, and you will also regret that. [repeat, repeat]
    Several alternatives are suggested in the original score, and almost anything will fit. I arrived on Broadway and continued downtown. At length I came upon an international bank and went into it to exchange some traveler’s checks for lire. The noise of the bank muffled the either/or jingle in my mind, and mercifully I had forgotten it by the time I got back on the street. Not far from the bank there was a big chain bookstore and I went in and spent as long as I could manage selecting a new Italian phrase book and dictionary. My old ones had been lost or possibly discarded at some point when I had felt it necessary to lighten my luggage.
    Go to Rome, you will regret it …
    I paid for the books and walked up to Fulton Street. Nothing more to be done, but there was a McAnn’s down the block to the east. I went in and sat down at the bar. If I’d ever been in this particular one before I didn’t recall it but all of them are much the same: long, dark, and narrow, with moldy paper shamrocks on the walls, thick-brogued bartenders, and serious daytime drinkers. And me. There were black bags under my eyes in the mirror. After a moment of inner conflict I bought a club soda and carried it to the phones in the back.
    A few calls of a rather impersonal nature: to the permit board, General Camera and a couple of other rental outfits, even one of the rehab centers. There was a general consensus that some such film as Kevin had described had actually been shot in our fair city. I was somewhat reassured by the corroboration.
    ... do not go, and you will also regret that …
    It was still early for the airport, but it occurred to me that I could beat rush hour if I started right away. So I went across to the subway stop and got on the A train. It was a long ride and acutely tedious. I had forgotten to get a paper. But I could congratulate myself on saving five dollars on the JFK express. At Rockaway Boulevard I got out and waited for the train to Howard Beach. Then another change for the bus and then the TWA terminal.
    I checked in and gave up my bag after taking the books out of it. There were hours left to kill and I exhausted the shops rather quickly. At an Olde English Pub in the terminal I consumed a vile excuse for a London broil and drank a couple of beers, which made me sleepy.
    Now there was nothing at all to do but wait. I left the restaurant and parked myself in a leatherette chair near my gate. Muzak and the droning flight announcements hit me like Phenobarbital, and soon I felt much like a switched-off machine, an acceptable state. My flight boarded at twenty to seven. Kevin had booked me a window seat. Sweet of him, I thought. But there was some sort of tower delay and by the time the plane took off it was completely dark.
    I turned down the meal and drank midget bottles of bourbon through the dinner service. Afterward I declined the movie also and instead read a bit of the thriller I’d bought the day before, so long ago it seemed. Small-time gangsters were murdering each other in Detroit, very relaxing.