Read Online A String of Beads by Thomas Perry - Free Book Online

that showed his bulging biceps and a pair of cargo pants
     with a zippered leg that could change the pants to shorts. His legs hung off the platform
     at the cavernous entrance to the shelter, kicking happily. On his head was an olive
     drab watch cap of the sort that Jane had brought to keep warm when she camped at night,
     but she could see enough above his hairline to see his hair was cut very short. His
     shoes were brown hiking boots made of netting and rubber like high-top sneakers. His
     skin was like Jane’s, but it had been darkened by the sun to look like Jane’s father’s—like
     a worn copper penny. His face was still handsome and a little boyish with the same
     amusement showing in his black eyes.
    “Hey, Janie,” Jimmy said, his cheerful smile growing. He looked down at her from the
     platform and then stared up at the sky and took in a deep breath of morning air. Then
     he looked down at her again. “I knew that if anybody would come and find me it would
     be you.” He closed his eyes to the sunshine and then opened one eye. “I had hoped
     for your sake that you’d look about that way at our present age.”
    “You look pretty chipper yourself, Jimmy.”
    “I wasn’t talking about chipper.”
    “I know you weren’t,” she said. “I’m married. Happily.”
    “I’d heard that. Good for you. It takes character. Another sign that you grew up just
     the way I thought. He’s a doctor, right?”
    “Yes, and a good man. How about you? Get married yet?”
    “No,” he said. “I’ll bet you stopped off at my mom’s before you came, and she would
     have said so if I had.”
    “Probably,” said Jane. “But we didn’t get to talk much this time.”
    “I would have been a better husband in the old times I think. I’d go off up the trail
     with my friends to fight whoever we were fighting that month and the little woman
     would stay in her clan’s longhouse and raise crops and babies with her friends. When
     I came back we’d make her section of the longhouse a happy place for a while, and
     then I’d go off again.”
    “Very romantic. But I’ll hold on to some hope that you find a regular modern girl
     and live a dull life.” She climbed the steps to the platform where he sat. She sat
     down beside him and let her legs dangle from the edge of the platform.
    “Maybe I’ll give it a try if I live.”
    At last , she thought. “Tell me why the police are after you.”
    “It started, as a lot of stupid stories do, in a bar. I was there, and so was a guy
     named Nick Bauermeister. I didn’t know his name at the time, but I noticed him. He
     was about thirty I’d say, maybe a little older. He was drunk and loud. It was around
     midnight and I was getting ready to go home, because I always figure if you haven’t
     met somebody who will change your life by midnight, she isn’t coming.”
    “Good policy,” said Jane.
    “I thought it was fairly practical,” he said. “I was heading for the door and this
     guy stepped in my way.”
    “Why?”
    “Stupid and drunk.”
    “How big was this guy?”
    “Slightly bigger than me.”
    “Bigger than you? Wow.”
    “Slightly. He looked like a bleary-eyed Viking. He took a poke at me and I sidestepped
     and dropped him. He was one of those hopeless guys who does that, and then gets up.
     It’s the getting up that hurts you.”
    “I can see how that might be,” said Jane.
    “Well, sure. I’m just going home. All he has to do is lie there for less than ten
     seconds while he thinks about why I might not have been his best choice. But he’s
     not a thinking man. He’s the ‘back up in your face’ guy. So when he came for me again,
     I knew I’d have to hit him a little harder and faster. I did. Maybe five times. Then
     I went home.”
    “And?”
    “And the next day the police came to my house after work to say that they’d picked
     this Nick guy up off the floor and taken him to the hospital last night. They were
     considering