Read Online Empties by George; Zebrowski - Free Book Online

anything had been stolen from his shop to make the mess on the church floor. He was sorry the priest had died. Heart attack was the story that was circulating around the parish. Benek had thanked him and left.  
    Captain Reddy had not even asked about Gibney’s report. As with the brainless dead man on the bench, the case was simply unfair in the way it presented itself; but who said that any case had to be fair? Benek had often thought police procedures a bit unfair to the criminal, at least to the minority that got caught, because cops went down a whole list of possibilities for the important cases, reached for long shots, and were always ready for a chance revelation, which was much like betting on every horse in the race despite the expense. The criminal was more limited, carrying out a particular set of actions to one end. Cops often guessed the truth, or had it handed to them, as when a routine suspect had dropped her purse in the station house and out fell the cocaine that had been stolen from the murder victim and the revolver that had killed him. Cops bluffed confessions out of suspects, and then tried to back them up, while the criminal was frozen in time, unable to change a single detail after the arrest. And most criminals never got caught.  
    Thinking about this case was all but impossible—no suspects, plenty of evidence suggesting nothing acceptable, and no motive. He couldn’t even bet on all the horses because he didn’t know where they were running, or even that they were running. Maybe they weren’t even horses.  
    As he turned off his light, he had a sudden vision of a fiend in some deep basement removing brains from bodies, then lay on his back and thought of Dierdre Matera, wondering if there would be any point in questioning her again, and realized that he still had an excuse to see her again and that it did not have to be police business. His attraction to her was as clear as seeing a primary color. He couldn’t lie to himself about it without knowing that he was lying; therefore, he was telling himself the truth. End of argument. Reason had won...  
    He drifted into sleep listening to the sounds of cars and trucks. Auto break-in alarms sounded throughout the night, but his sleep-self had learned long ago to ignore them. The racers were running, and no one knew where the finish line waited to be crossed...  
    He dreamed that fifty years had passed, leaving him unchanged, but that Dierdre was now an old crone living off the rents from her decaying building. He stepped into her apartment and she gave him a toothless smile, then dropped her silken robe to reveal a body unchanged by time. She came up close to him and said, “I could choose a body or a face, but not both. Women have to choose between their face or their ass. How do you like my choice? I’m still a virgin, you know.” She was without a doubt a woman of ass. At her age she had to be, because in the dream he could not see her face.  
    She tried to kiss him and he woke up in a cold sweat. A break-in alarm was going full blast nearby, but he was grateful for the distraction as he got up, went to the window, and peered down through the glass. Three shapes were working on the car next to his, a Lexus that made his old Volvo look shabby. He turned away and went back to bed, resigned to the fact that the car would be gone before anyone called the cops.  
     
    On his way out early the next morning, he ran into his neighbor Carla as she was keying in through the big glass lobby door. He knew at once from the look on her face what had happened.  
    “Your car?” he asked, trying to look sympathetic.  
    She stopped and tried to smile. “It was brand new.”  
    “Insurance okay?”  
    She nodded. “Do you think I’ll get it back?”  
    “Quite honestly—no. It’s probably on its way to Los Angeles by now. From there it might turn up in Warsaw or even Moscow, or wherever someone has a standing order for this model, or just