The 25th Hour by David Benioff Read Free Book Online

but cannot reproduce, an ability to make the ordinary look strange. The frames are always rusted, giving the pictures the aura of relics retrieved from a sunken ship.
    Monty’s father had done most of the work that afternoon, sawing the metal into the necessary lengths and filing the edges smooth, while Monty drank beer and watched the football game. When the photograph was dry, and before they went out to buy the glass, Monty penciled an inscription on the back: For Naturelle Rosario. The Day She Stole My Heart (and Fed It to My Dog) . Later, after he had given it to her for Valentine’s Day, he decided the inscription was a little goofy, even embarrassing, but Naturelle had already read it and laughed and kissed him, so it was too late for the eraser.
    Today Monty does not notice the picture; it has become part of the apartment’s furnishings. He unhooks Doyle’s leash, and the dog trots across the room and curls up in his usual spot by the radiator. Monty turns on the television and watches the weatherman’s face materialize on the screen, speaking of the coming storm. He turns off the television, looks around. Naturelle still stands by the door.
    ‘What?’ he asks.
    She shrugs. ‘I don’t know. What do you want?’
    He sits down on the sofa, arms spread wide and resting on the back cushions. His feet hurt. He can feel the blisters forming on his soles, the skin raw and abraded after ten hours of walking through the city. ‘What do I want.’ He stares at Doyle for a moment. ‘I want to be that girl from the X-Men, the one who can walk through walls.’
    Naturelle walks over to the sofa and sits down next to him, her hands clasped between her legs.
    ‘And if I can’t do that,’ he continues, ‘if I can’t figure out how to walk through walls, I’m thinking one shot through the roof of the mouth, boom , problem solved.’
    She hits him on the shoulder. ‘Quit joking about that.’
    ‘You think I’m joking?’
    Naturelle stands and walks into the kitchen, pulls a jar of raw honey from the refrigerator, a teaspoon from the drying rack. She returns to the living room and sits beside Monty again, handing him the jar. ‘So what are we doing tonight? Before you shoot yourself.’
    ‘Uncle Blue’s throwing me a party at VelVet. We ought to go.’ He twists off the top and gives the jar back to her. ‘You don’t think I can do it, do you?’
    ‘No,’ she says, dipping her spoon into the honey. ‘I know you can’t. Did you meet with your probation officer today?’
    ‘Yeah.’
    ‘What did he say?’
    ‘He said, “Report on time tomorrow.”’ He watches her lick the teaspoon clean. ‘That’s a nasty habit you have.’
    She leans over and kisses him on the lips. ‘Let’s go into the bedroom,’ she says.
    This is where they got him, right here, this sofa, this is where they ruined him: last June, early in the morning, awakened from a deep sleep by violent pounding on the front door and Doyle’s furious barking. Naturelle, the lighter sleeper, had slipped out of bed and into a long T-shirt while the pounding continued. She left the bedroom and hushed the dog. Monty listened as she spoke to whomever was outside the door. He heard her unlock the door and open it. When she returned to the bedroom he saw her face and he thought about running, about opening the window and launching himself onto the linden tree outside, catching a branch and swinging down to the street, running as fast as he could for as long as he could. Instead he stood, pulled on a pair of sweatpants, and walked shirtless into the living room.
    There were four men, all white, none much older than Monty. They wore suits with the jackets unbuttoned, shoulder holsters snug beneath each man’s left armpit. They showed Monty their badges, DEA, and handed him the search papers, authorized by a federal court. All of them were smiling, so Monty smiled too, offered them coffee. They thanked him but declined.
    ‘We’re going to take a look