The Judas Glass by Michael Cadnum Read Free Book Online

Sorrow broke over me, leaving me helpless.
    It was a form of comfort to dial my office when I was downstairs again. I gave Matilda an expurgated rundown of the day’s events. “You should be in the hospital,” she said.
    â€œThey told me I was okay.”
    â€œBut your lungs might be damaged.”
    It was like her to think of my body like this. She was gifted when it came to dealing with computers and fax machines. I wondered if my lungs were a variety of office equipment to her. An emotional collapse would mean the same thing. If I couldn’t breathe or think anymore she’d be out of a job. Besides, she had asthma. I could hear her wheeze as we talked about smoke inhalation.
    â€œTell Stella Cameron I can’t make that phone conference today—”
    Matilda took a deep, forced breath, using her inhalor. I waited for her to exhale. “She cancelled anyway,” said Matilda. “She’s having a baby.”
    I stared at my appointment book, my own printing dominated with names and numbers Matilda had added in her rounded handwriting.
    Matilda read my silence correctly. “No, I don’t mean she’s having the baby today. I mean she’s pregnant and she is having a checkup. Just routine, her doctor had to switch his appointments around.”
    Even in my emotionally ragged state I marveled that Stella Cameron had been impregnated. It wasn’t that she was unattractive. She was very good-looking, the way a cruise missile is good-looking. Unless Stella had been artificially fertilized there was a man out there who deserved an award. And I had just spoken to her yesterday. People had so many secrets.
    â€œI’ll take care of everything,” Matilda was saying, with that trace of accent that made her sound so intelligent. Perhaps it was the implication that because she was fluent in at least two languages, she was superior in other ways, too. Perhaps it was that Spanish grace in her voice, with its hint of Old World manners. I had the feeling that I could vanish from the planet and Matilda could keep my practice going for weeks—maybe months.
    I hung up the phone and found Connie organizing her briefcase, finding a place for her laptop in among the catalogs.
    â€œI think if I dropped dead Matilda would rearrange my appointments, turn off the lights, and go shopping,” I said.
    â€œShe works for you,” said Connie. “She doesn’t necessarily love you, or even like you.” She was pale, her face showing no feeling, her movements crisp and exact. “How’s her asthma?”
    â€œShe’s on a new aerosol, albuterol. It seems to work.”
    â€œI thought Matilda might be the one,” said Connie. “So much of it is proximity, the women men spend time with.”
    That was one way to handle it, I thought, like a subject on a talk show. Intellectualize it, make it a subject, not a crisis.
    â€œWhat do you think we should do?” I asked. It was a dangerous question, the kind I was trained to never ask.
    â€œWe won’t have our big talk right now. I’m in the middle of figuring out new inventory software,” she said. “And a couple from La Jolla is flying up just to look at that cork-pull, the one you made fun of.”
    â€œI didn’t make fun of it, exactly. It looks like a water pump. Who would use that to open a bottle of wine?”
    â€œWine stewards,” she said, putting a hand over her eyes for a moment. “People collect them. I have to be in the shop in half an hour. Go take a rest, and maybe have some of that rhubarb pie.”
    â€œI feel all right,” I said.
    â€œAll right is what you are not, Richard,” she said with the gentle condescension of a woman talking to a child or a very cantankerous old person. She was impatient, too. And angry. It would be awhile before she would let it show, but I could tell, the way she kept flicking her hair back, the way she sounded