The Altonevers by Frederic Merbe Read Free Book Online

been in and out of the room at a mouse’s hours.
    “ Who is it?” she
asks
    “ It's me,
Cider.”
    “ Talking apple
juice?”
    “ Open up Carrots?” he puts
a finger over her enlarged pupil.
    “ I want out.”
    “ Let me in,” he says, and
she unlatches the door.
    “ Well, look who's back and
in the day at that,” she says as he strolls in with an air of not
caring.
    “ I've been
busy.”
    “ Where's your
key?”
    “ I lost it.”
    She plucks the smoke from his lips,
then drops it in the water of a flowerless vase.
    “ No smoking.”
    “ Why'd you do that?” he
says as he sits next to the window in her bird’s eye rocking
perch.
    “ I want to go out like you
do, and don't give me that it's dangerous stuff. You can’t keep me
cooped up here forever.”
    “ I can, but I don’t intend
to, but,” he says.
    “ But what?” she
asks.
    “ Did you eat?”
    “ Not yet.”
    “ At all?”
    “ Lunch,” she
says.
    “ Yes, I’ll have a sandwich.
Pastrami please.”
    “ NO!”
    “ To pastrami?”
    “ That's not the
point.”
    “ Lunch,” he says
stridently, picking up the rotary phone from the night table, and
clicking the shaded lamp on.
    “ Sitting in darkness,” he
says “wallowing will make you feel worse, lighten the room up. I
bet you’ll feel a bit brighter. Hello. Yes, room service.
Yes.”
    “ No!”
    “ Excuse me, I’m on the
phone.”
    “ Why can't I go out?” she
shouts.
    “ Because you could get
locked up for a thousand years, or worse. Okay, hold on a second
please.”
    She turns for the door, he leaps away
from the phone, grabbing her legs and falling with her heels
flurrying against his stomach.
    “ Stop, hey, what're you
doing?” he grunts.
    “ This is bullshit,” she
shrieks and scrapes her way across the cheap carpet for the door.
He climbs up her flailing legs and anchors his weight, she shouts
from the bottom of her lungs, “Help!
help!”
    “ Stop you crazy
bi-”
    “ What!?”
    “ Anna, c’mon stop. You'll
get us pinched,” he says with rising pitch. The phone's of the hook
as they tussle on the ground toward the door. Cider alligator rolls
with his arms around her waist as a jolly rolls by, lifting. And
dropping the quarrelsome two to the ground.
    “ Help! Rape, fire help
rape,” she shouts.
    “ Shut up. I'm not doing
that.”
    “ Rape. Fire! Fiiiii-” he
muzzles her mouth with his palm, that she tries very hard to
bite.
    “ Ahh, stop, fine.
Fine.”
    “ Today.”
    “ Whatever.”
    “ No, today.”
    “ Tomorrow,” he
concedes.
    “ Okay,” she says after a
moment’s pause. He springs to his feet and hurries to the
receiver.
    “ Hello. Yes of course. Of
course everything’s fine.”
    “ She's fine,”
    “ What? No, no, she's a
hooker. Yeah I know, wants to go out.”
    “ WHAT!?” Anna yells with
red faced fury.
    “ Yea, exactly. It's a shame
the work ethic these days.”
    “ Yup Uhuh.”
    “ Right. Anyway, can I get a
pastrami sandwich with mustard and pickles. Yes, a
lemonade.”
    She stands ready to pounce, glaring at
him gravely with straight stiffened shoulders. Her horrified
expression leaps out at him in a second of static aired
silence.
    “ What do you want to eat?”
he asks.
    “ A prostitute?” she
snarls.
    “ And a prostitute,” he says
to the receiver.
    “ What color hair?” he
asks.
    “ No…a soup,” she utters,
utterly giving up.
    “ And a soup” he adds, “Eh,
ah, oh, a no go on the other. Right,” he says. Anna nods in
contempt of him.
    “ No, thank you. You have a
pleasant day,” he says then clunking the clerks voice to the
dial.
    “ I hate you.”
    “ What? I had to say
something,” exchanging sneers before she swipes at his head and
misses.
    He finishes his sandwich, as she
slurps down her soup. Wiping his mouth he walks for the
door.
    “ Why do you have a gun?”
she asks. He says nothing, then takes the weapon from his ankle,
checking to be sure it’s loaded, and holds it handle first out for
her to