The Exquisite by Laird Hunt Read Free Book Online Page A

in one of his cold little hands then let go and gave it a few pats.
    Don’t worry about my business affairs, they are quite well looked after, such as they are at this late stage in my career, my boy, he said. As far as anything else goes, I am an old man and like to talk and I do not like to talk alone. Tulip has been a wonderful companion to me, but it occurred to both of us that another friend might be even more wonderful, and now we are fortunate to have you. It is certainly true that, on occasion, friends do things for each other, but for now I’m not sure what it is exactly besides rousing that lovely wisp of a Tulip you can do.
    I looked at him.
    He looked at me.
    All right, sure, I said.

EIGHT
    The early, the innocent, the unambiguous days and nights in the hospital gave way to an indeterminate period during which I thought I had received my discharge orders and returned to the world of cars and bricks and clogged gutters—where things went well then badly then worse—but then I was back or had never left, I had never left, there I was, and in the deep and dark hours of the night I woke from the dream of wind and voices and met an old man.
    May I call you Henry? he said.
    Yes, of course, I said.
    My name is Aris Kindt.
    I saw you today when they were looking at your throat are you sick they tell me I’m not well but I’m better what’s wrong with you? I said.
    I know, he said.
    What do you mean, you know?
    His upper lip curled a little. He shrugged.
    Well, Mr. Kindt, may I call you Mr. Kindt, then you also know that I’m a thief—that I’m thieving in this establishment, that I’m making a fucking killing. And speaking of fucking, I wouldn’t mind, that is, with my doctor, she’s a peach, a pale yellow one with funny ears, do you know her?
    My throat is fine, he said. It’s much better. Thank you for asking.
    Your throat?
    His lip curled again.
    Dr. Tulp, I said. Best thing about this place, very bright, an incandescent bulb, a light-emitting diode. She’s getting a green card. She likes me a lot, takes my case very seriously. I’m in her office all the time. My humble room here is her second home. Peaches. I grew up on Long Island. Well, Staten Island too. That’s my story. My father was in construction. Do you know Job? We’re in business. We’re practically fucking partners.
    Shhh, he said, putting a hand on my shoulder. That’s the morphine talking. It often talks much louder than is necessary about things not everybody need hear. I haven’t even properly introduced myself yet—we can allow a greater measure of detail into our discussions after I have done so. Does that sound like a good idea?
    It does, I said.
    I went quiet. I closed my eyes. When I woke again he was gone.
    He reappeared the next night and sat very still for a long time. We stared at each other and then he went away. He came back minutes or hours later with a large red balloon and asked me if I wanted a bite.
    I nodded and he brought the balloon close to my mouth. It bobbed in front of my face. I shook my head.
    There is less morphine in you now than there was earlier, certainly less than there was last night, he said. He ate his balloon, very slowly, very neatly. It didn’t pop, just grew smaller, bite by careful bite. When he was finished, he said, we have things in common, young thief, then he went away.
    He came back near dawn.
    What do you want? I said.
    Listen, dear Henry, and I’ll tell you. May I?
    I nodded. He crossed his legs and wrapped his hands around his knee. He cracked his neck loudly then began speaking.
    Once upon a time, he said, there was a man who lived in a large Dutch town in the center of drab, flat farmland, where he had been obliged to do day labor as a child and to eat all manner of foul things, which were advertised as fresh and healthy and were neither. The man had grown up to become a maker of inexpensive quivers and had been bad at it and had married unsuccessfully because that was the sort