Read Online Dead Man's Hand by Pati Nagle - Free Book Online Page B

of context. As if the place—the time , he amended—where he found himself were not so completely outlandish.
    Not Twain. Washington Irving. Rip Van Winkle.
    Had he slept a hundred years and more, untouched by time? He doubted that. He remembered distinctly Orson Jones’s attack—and maybe it had not been a disappearing blade after all—and he also remembered the sensation of being dragged. Dragged along the roadway, then into a field. Dragged for a long time, during which he had lost consciousness, for it was the last thing he remembered before awakening tonight.
    Could Jones have killed him, after all? A shiver went through him and he closed his eyes. His mouth was dry, his breathing short.
    Come now, Sebastian. Come, pull yourself together, man. If you were dead you wouldn’t be here. Heaven perhaps, hell more likely.
    This was neither. This was … strange.
    A hundred years in the future everything should be perfect. There should be no filth, no tramps sleeping in hard chairs, no dinginess to this room beneath the flickering light, no faint smell of urine in the corners. If the future was so dismal, he wanted no part of it.
    Atlantic City would be better, perhaps. He was going there, certain. He took out the ticket again and held it in his hands, staring at it as he tried to convince himself it was real and not part of a dreadful dream.

 
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~ Arnold ~
    Queens, New York
    A rnold Rothstein awoke with the sound of an automobile engine in his ears. He opened his eyes and saw nothing—he was wrapped in a sheet.
    Fighting panic, he struggled until he got the sheet loose enough to free his arms. He had to roll back and forth, and in doing so realized he was outdoors.
    It was cold. Hard to breathe.
    He got his hands free and untied the hood from around his neck, pulling it off along with the scrap of cloth that was covering his face. He sat up, annoyed, and disentangled the sheet from his legs. Underneath he was dressed in a plain white shirt—two shirts, actually—and pants with a strip of white cloth for a belt.
    A moment’s reflection changed his mood to bewilderment, because he’d been pretty sure he was dead. If that was so, he should be lying in the ground, not on it.
    He remembered the shooting, remembered the hospital. He’d begged Carolyn not to leave him alone, that was the last thing he remembered clearly. The rest was sort of hazy, like a dream. He was pretty sure he’d tried to haunt George McManus.
    He looked around, saw gravestones in tidy rows. A cemetery. His stomach did a slow flip-flop as he realized what that meant. He was dead all right, or should be. From the looks of things he’d been buried, but wasn’t anymore.
    Another car engine roared by, out in the distance. It was night, and cold clouds drifted across a pale moon. Arnold shivered and got to his feet, kicking away the sheet that had been wrapped around him. A purple striped prayer shawl fell out of it. With a grimace of disgust he kicked that aside, too. Who the hell had dressed him like this?
    Carolyn, probably. She’d given him a Jew funeral, a gesture to his father.
    Screw his father, Arnold thought savagely. Bastard had hated him, and the feeling was mutual. He turned around.
    Yep. Grave marker with a lot of goddamned Jew gibberish on it. In English, “Departed November 6, 1928.” That fit.
    The weather fit, too; it was cold. He picked up the sheet and wrapped it around himself like a blanket.
    Why the hell couldn’t Carolyn have buried him in a suit and tie, like decent people? Here he was, Mr. Big, the Man Uptown, the Brain—dressed in a goddamn sheet.
    Things didn’t look quite right. Didn’t sound right either—the car engines had a strange tone, quieter and faster than he remembered. There were weird colored lights out along the street.
    He stood still, his back to the gravestone, coldly thinking what was best to do. What he wanted was