Read Online Death Will Have Your Eyes by James Sallis - Free Book Online

and point the other way.
    Soldiers and dinosaurs like myself wouldn’t be so easily misdirected, of course, but I wasn’t certain just who I was dealing with, not yet, and this could be one way of finding out. Besides, confusion never goes to waste. And it gets to be almost instinctive after a while. All part of the game, chords to play choruses over, steps of the ritual dance we locked ourselves into again and again.
    â€œC’mon, m’am,” I said at the local post office. “Give a guy some help here, all right? We go way back. Jimmie—with an i-e, not a y . Never James: Jim. Last name sounded English. You know? I mean, I can see his face like it was yesterday. Parkingham? Markham?”
    â€œThe postal service is not a public information system, sir.” Visions of long, untroubled breaks, lunches replete with fried-shrimp po-boys, and a fine, secure retirement filled her head.
    â€œI know that, m’am. And I know you guys do one hell of a job. Women too, of course. But hey, this is the first chance I’ve had to look him up in almost twenty years. It ain’t like I’m calling in from home to ask you something. I’m standing right here, and I just drove over four hundred miles, and tomorrow I gotta drive at least that again. Just don’t tell me I’m gonna have to go all the way back to Portland without ever seeing my old buddy after all this, okay? Just don’t tell me that.”
    I stared off (fiercely? forlornly?) towards the window. Some double-winged insect the size of a hummingbird butted away at it.
    â€œHey, hold on a minute. Berkeley . That’s it! We all used to call him Bish. Esse est percipi, the eraser, what eraser? and all that. How could I have forgotten?”
    â€œI’m happy for you, sir. Have a safe and pleasant journey home.”
    â€œC’mon, m’am. Miss? Jimmie Berkeley. How hard is it? I’m begging you. Bail me out here, huh? Whatta we have, if we don’t have our memories?”
    And wouldn’t you know, with all the other towns I might have pulled into, with the name itself (or so I thought) pure invention, just riding way out there on the edge of a blue note, there actually would be a Jimmie Berkeley in Marvell, North Carolina.
    â€œI really should call my supervisor—”
    â€œPlease. Please do. Absolutely. In your place I’d do the same.”
    â€œâ€”but I can’t see the harm in it.”
    â€œMaybe you should call him anyway? For appearance’s sake. Cover your bases.”
    â€œAnd things haven’t been going at all well for Jimmie this past few years. It should do him good to see an old friend, talk over better times.”
    Johnsson’s should . That dangerous word again.
    â€œHe’s living out at the old Swensen place. Caretaking. Not that there’s any care to take, or much left to take care of. What do you call it? A sinecure?”
    She sketched lightly on the back of an old envelope as she went on.
    â€œThe mailing address is route one, box nine. But the way you get there is to take Cherry, that’s the main street out front,”—as a bold line crossed the bottom of her improvised page—“on up to Loman’s Lane and turn right once you pass the Nazarene church.” A square with a cross inside it. “Then you go on four, five miles. Till you come to an old boarded-up Spur station. That’ll be on your right. The road to the left’s the one you want, the gravel one.” Thinner lines now. “Half a mile more, over the creek, first house you come to. First one you’ll see, anyhow. Out behind the big house, where old Swensen lived, there’s a cottage, probably used to be a carriage house or slave’s quarters. That’s Jimmie’s place.” An X .
    Remaining in character, I thanked her effusively, all the time thinking Damn, damn, damn, and What webs we weave .
    But like a good athlete, now I had to