Read Online Eye of the Cricket by James Sallis - Free Book Online

wasn't
     supposed to survive, that scrambled her speech and caused her to have to learn all over again how to stand, walk, reach for
     things, grasp them.
    Massive and sudden, a doctor said. Nothing they could do. They tried, of course. But... She was sorry.
    So I moved out of Clare's, back again into the old house where I'd lived with LaVeme, taking Bat along. Where often I would
     stand looking out the window above the kitchen sink to the slave quarters, to the makeshift, long-forsaken office out there,
     its roof covered with grass.
    Hours earlier, as I stood over a body I thought might be Shon Delany's, I'd been thinking about Clare.
    I opened a can of tuna, real tuna, people's tuna, and put it on the floor by Bat's dish. Rattled the feeder to shake down more dry food. Filled his bowl with fresh water.
    Maybe I wasn't so bad after all.
    I put on water for myself, set out a cup and a bag of Irish Breakfast tea, began rummaging through mail.
    Cut-rate and presorted first-class advertisements from book clubs, record clubs, video clubs. An offer to provide me with
     a subscription to a catalog of catalogs. A refund check from the electric company for fifty-nine cents.
    The kettle called, and Bat followed me back into the kitchen, thinking something more by way of food might happen there. Hope
     springs eternal. People drop things. The alert cat pounces before Providence has a chance to withdraw its offer.
    That afternoon I myself had decided that Life, Providence, Chance or Whatever just might be sending me a message and, following
     the scuffle on Derbigny, returned home to shower off blood, grime and stray bits of skin and street tar, eat cold Dinty Moore
     beef stew out of a can, put on new clothes and head back out in pursuit of Shon Delany.
    Signals we are set here to read. You must learn to put your distress signals in code. Move along, Griffin.
    I did.
    On foot, to the donut shop where Shon Delany had worked. By then it was almost four. And by then the shop was closed.
    Not just closed. They'd pulled the rug out from under it. Tast-T Donut was shut down like a clam. Gone, abandoned, deserted,
     defunct.
    A hand-lettered cardboard sign on the door read Sorry Were Not Here. The parking lot was full—employees' cars from the hospital
     and surrounding medical facilities.
    Next door was a florist's shop. Stucco, a converted single-family residence with diminutive arches out front, every bit as
     charming as they were nonsensical. Recently painted light green and peach.
    A bell tolled as I ducked through the entryway and came up against a trestle table behind which stood a woman at least six
     feet tall. Red hair everywhere, thin, wearing a black sheath. She was on the phone and, though motionless, somehow gave the
     impression of swaying. Willowy. She nodded to me, smiled. Be right with me.
    "Yes, ma'am, I understand that. But if you could just come by the store? We'd be able to do a lot better job for you then....
     Great."
    She put the phone down. Bare arms slim and lightly downed. Wrists narrow as a ruler, fingers long when she reached across
     the table to shake my hand. Late thirties? No perfume, but a smell of soap and, behind that, the faintest trace of sweat.
    Her earrings were tiny sharks with the lower halves of men's bodies hanging from their mouths.
    "One problem working here is, a good-looking man comes in, I know there's no way he's bringing me flowers."
    The phone rang again.
    She shrugged. "Let the machine get it. People don't bother anymore even to bestir themselves."
    Bestir themselves?
    "They call from home in their pajamas or underwear and expect you to drop everything. Deborah O'Neil," she said, taking away
     her hand. "What can I do for you?"
    She smiled, instinctively turning her head a few degrees to the side and lifting her chin. Incredible profile.
    I asked her about the donut shop.
    "Didn't think you looked like a flowerman," she said.
    She told me they'd been teetering at the edge (yes, she