Read Online City by Alessandro Baricco - Free Book Online Page A

shoot, you pick the cards up off the ground, and when you’re done you find you’ve got fifty-one normal cards and one with two holes in the middle.”
    â€œThe jack of hearts.”
    â€œRight.”
    â€œJack of hearts every time?”
    â€œThey like that card. There must be something behind it.”
    â€œAnd when can you catch this number?”
    â€œYou can’t. The last time was two years ago and a fellow got killed. End of the run.”
    â€œThe two of them did him in?”
    â€œHe was a guy who came from somewhere else, a fool. He had heard the story of the jack of hearts and didn’t believe it; he said those old maids couldn’t hit a playing card if you rolled it up and stuck it in the gun barrel. For days he went around saying that, it made him laugh like a lunatic, that business of rolling up the card and so forth. Finally the Dolphin sisters decided they’d had enough. It wasn’t so much the business about the card, it was the stuff about the old maids that made them furious, everyone here knows it’s best to avoid the subject, and instead that jerk couldn’t shut up, the old maids this, the old maids that. It made them crazy. Another whiskey?”
    â€œFirst the story.”
    â€œFinally, he bet a thousand dollars that they couldn’t do it. He seemed very sure of himself. They showed up, with their guns. The whole town turned out to watch. The fool laughed, totally cool, counted out the forty paces, took the pack of cards, and threw them up in the air. He was stretched out on the ground while the cards were still in the air, falling like dead leaves: two shots straight to the heart. Dead. The Dolphin sisters turned and, without a word, went home.”
    â€œBingo.”
    â€œWe all stood there, like stone, and didn’t even know where to look. A silence like the grave. Only the sheriff moved: he went up to the corpse, rolled him onto his back, and stood looking a while. He seemed to be searching for something. Then he turned to us: he shook his head and smiled.”
    Carver stopped wiping the glass. He smiled, too.
    â€œThat fool had been very clever. He’d taken the jack of hearts out of the pack and hidden it. Guess where.”
    â€œVest pocket.”
    â€œJust above his heart. I remember it still, that card. Covered with blood. And in the middle: two holes, just so, like a signature.”
    â€œWhiskey, Carver.”
    â€œSì, señor.”
    At the trial—said Shatzy—the judge searched through his books for something that would allow an unarmed cheat to be killed without the killers’ ending up on the gallows. He couldn’t find anything. So he said, Fuck you, not guilty. He took the sheriff aside and said something to him alone. Then he went and got violently drunk.
    â€œCarver?”
    â€œSì, señor.”
    â€œWhy am I alive?”
    â€œThis is a saloon, the church is farther along, on the other side of the street.”
    â€œHow is it that the Dolphin sisters shot me and yet I’m here, drinking whiskey?”
    â€œBlanks. The sisters don’t know it, Truman Morgan makes them, red, .44-.40 caliber, they did a good job, exact likenesses of the real ones. But they’re blanks. Sheriff’s orders.”
    â€œAnd they don’t know it?”
    Carver shrugs his shoulders. The stranger empties his glass. There is a stink of sweat, alcohol, horses, rotten teeth, pee and aftershave. If you asked Shatzy what the hell it had to do with the menu, she said it does, it does. Don’t worry, this is only the beginning.

8
    Since the bathroom was at the top of the stairs, when Shatzy went up to bed she passed it. Gould was in there. And what she heard from outside was his voice. His voice imitating other voices.
    â€œWe’re not at your fucking college, Larry, you know? Look at me and breathe . . . come on, breathe . . . AND GO SLOW WITH THAT STUFF, CHRIST!”
    â€œYour