Read Online A Man Lies Dreaming by Lavie Tidhar - Free Book Online Page A

floors, as if furniture was hastily removed. A door opened onto a cellar like the one you described. However, there was no one there, and the cell doors were open and empty.’
    ‘They moved them …’
    ‘Who are
they
, Mr Wolf?’
    ‘I don’t know.’
    ‘You’re lying,’ Morhaim said, and smiled a small, bitter smile. ‘But it does not matter. On the cellar floor we found marks, stains. Possibly something has happened down there, but what?’
    ‘I told you. She shot the man, Kramer. For … for taking me down there.’
    ‘A man named Josef Kramer is indeed on our list of alien residents,’ Morhaim said. ‘His occupation is listed as market porter. His whereabouts are unknown.’
    ‘No body,’ Keech said, and grinned. ‘No body, no crime. No crime, no nothing, shamus.’
    ‘But that’s—’ the reality of his situation sunk home for Wolf. They had cleaned up, and in a hurry. Moved the white slaves, the furniture, the still-cooling corpse. He couldn’t help it: he felt just a touch of pride. His people had always been efficient.
    But that meant he could not prove his innocence. He looked at Morhaim. ‘Are you going to charge me?’ he said.
    He saw the fat policeman look to the Inspector; look away. Morhaim was jittery, distracted. The silence lengthened in the room.
    ‘No.’
    ‘No?’
    ‘Mr Wolf,’ Morhaim said. ‘You are free to go.’
    ‘I am?’
    ‘Get this piece of shit out of here,’ Morhaim said. Keech said, ‘Yes, sir,’ and picked Wolf up. ‘Get your hands off of me, you fat pig.’
    The copper’s ugly face froze in a snarl. ‘You want more of what I’ve got?’ he said.
    ‘Leave him be, Keech.’
    ‘But Inspector—!’
    ‘We’ll be keeping an eye on you, Wolf.’
    ‘You do that,’ Wolf said. He half-turned and smiled. Touched the bruise on the side of his face. He felt like a piece of meat chewed by a giant angry dog. He leaned close to the fat policeman. ‘I’ll get you back for this, precious,’ he whispered. ‘That’s a promise.’
    Keech beamed at him. ‘I’d like that,’ he said. ‘I’d like to see you try.’
    ‘I said get him out of here!’
    ‘Yes, sir!’
    Keech pushed Wolf out of the door. Back into the corridor. Shut the door behind them, gently, as on a sickroom. ‘Tetchy, isn’t he?’ Wolf said.
    ‘He’s in mourning.’
    ‘For what?’
    ‘For you walking the streets free and all.’
    ‘You know I didn’t kill her.’
    ‘You’re guilty of something, Wolf. People like you always are.’
    ‘What are you, a Jew lover?’
    ‘No. Just someone who knows the difference between right and wrong.’
    ‘Are you sure you’re in the right line of work?’
    ‘Enough wisecracks, shamus. Get dressed.’ They were back in the cell. The door was open. Wolf’s blood-spattered clothes lay on the bed, neatly folded.
    ‘Can you turn round? I’m shy.’
    ‘Just do it already, will you, Wolf? You have guests and we don’t want to keep them waiting.’
    Wolf did as he was told. He folded the clothes they had given him, neatly, and put on his suit and his coat and his hat.
    He assumed they’d gone through his clothes: it was just a shame no one had bothered to clean them after.
    Lastly he put on his shoes; they were good English shoes.
    He followed Keech out and Keech opened a door and though they merely transitioned from one room to another room it was a transition from captivity into freedom; and he felt the need for air and drew it in, in a big shuddering inhalation. Somehow the air tasted different this side of the door: more sweet and more pure.
    Behind the reception desk a bored policeman was reading
Black Mask
, an American pulp Wolf himself was fond of. The lurid cover showed a woman lying in a pool of blood, a faceless assassin standing over her with a knife. Wolf scanned the people waiting patiently, eternally, on the benches beyond the desk. They were lined with whores and drunks and thieves: the people he now lived amongst.
    One who stood out