White Apples by Jonathan Carroll Read Free Book Online Page B

address.
    Interesting, huh?" The men stared at each other until Ettrich grew a slight smile. "And both sell what we love in their stores: I'm crazy for women so Coco sells lingerie. You're into fashion and Edward Brandt sells men's clothes. It would be interesting to go there right now and see what kind of store is there. Maybe neither. How did you meet?"
    "I went into La Strada."
    "The same way I met Coco. Was vor ein Zufall."
    "What?"
    "That's German. What a coincidence."
    They spoke for another hour without getting anywhere. They discussed exhaustively the question of their shared experience and, more importantly, what they should do now. They came to no comfortable conclusions. In the middle of the conversation, Bruno asked whether Vincent had experienced any odd powers since his "discovery."
    Ettrich didn't hesitate. "Besides no heartbeat? Unh-unh. You?"
    "No, but I keep hoping there's some kind of upside to this, you know? Like maybe tomorrow we'll discover we can fly. I'm tired, Vincent. I've got to go home and get some sleep or else I'm going to collapse." He chuckled. "Resurrection takes a lot out of you."
    After putting Bruno in a cab and watching it move away, Ettrich unexpectedly became very wound up and nervous again. He knew that if he returned to his apartment now he would only pace around or turn the television on and off as if it were a light switch. In fact the last place he wanted to be right now was at "home." A small bachelor apartment in the good part of town, it had a river view and nothing in the refrigerator but an unopened bottle of Chopin vodka and too many microwave pizzas. He decided to walk the seven blocks from the bar to Coco's shop to see if anything was different there.
    It had rained while he met with Bruno. The streets shone from it now. Cars passed in a sexy hiss. The night air smelled of wet stone and metal. Two women went by laughing and he was given the gift of their good perfumes. Colored lights from various store windows fell across his feet, turning his shoes different colors as he walked by. As he passed a bar, the door suddenly opened and three burly guys in baseball caps came out accompanied by the sound of Queen's "Another One Bites the Dust." The tune's bass line stayed in Ettrich's mind as he walked on.
    Kitty liked rain, Isabelle snow, Coco liked hot sunny days. Walking along, head down and the Queen song going somewhere in his background, Ettrich started making a mental list of the simi•larities and differences between the three women. Kitty tried so hard to be a vegetarian. Coco seemed to eat only junk food. Isabelle loved meat—the heavier the better. She often called herself a farmer and said she fit right into van Gogh's painting The Potato Eaters. What a laugh. With her Swedish-blond hair and big bee-stung blue eyes she looked more like a beauty in a cosmetics commercial than a brown van Gogh peasant.
    One thing that struck him as he walked along was that with the exception of Margaret Hof, Ettrich never spoke of Isabelle to any•one. He kept his thoughts about her to himself. Even when there had been trouble between them and he'd desperately wanted to talk with someone about it, he'd remained silent. What did that signify?
    He turned a last corner and was on North Wells Street. Coco's store was at the end of the block. He walked toward it with curiosity rather than trepidation. The day had been so insane that one more piece of madness would have fit right in. But to his surprise the store was still there. No La Strada, nothing but that familiar shop with its glass door and window full of lingerie. Hands in pockets, Ettrich stood in front of it for a good five minutes, thinking things over. He was lost in his thoughts when the car pulled up behind him.
    "Hey sport, what are you doing over there?"
    He turned around and was faced with a policeman staring at him from inside a patrol car. He smiled. "Thinking about buying some lingerie."
    The cop wasn't amused. "It's one