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

actually said teetering) for months over there. Some days they'd just put out on the shelves whatever was left over from the day before. Even the coffee
     got undrinkable. Not much for cleaning up, either, near the end. Counters so sticky you put your arm on one you have to shrug
     off your shirt and leave it there. Glued down for good. Only way they managed to stay afloat at all, long as they did, was
     by hiring new people when they couldn't pay old ones and let them go.
    I said she seemed to know a lot about the situation over there, an amazing amount really,and she shrugged.
    "I watch people, notice what happens around me. Always have. Things get slow here off and on during the day, you understand;
     it all comes in waves. And our office in the back has a window onto the alley. Employees take, took, their smoke breaks out
     there. I'd be doing the books, shuffling through piles of sales slips and invoices, and I'd hear them talking."
    Did they know what was going on?
    "They knew something was. The shop had recently been sold. Previous owner'd lost interest a long time back, and the shop just went on running itself,
     heading down theroadthe way it was pointed. New owner bought it as an investment, you see how it's all building up around
     here. He could care less about donuts. But the shop still went lurching along."
    Any idea whatfinally shut the doors?
    "Well, I don't know, of course. But I think it may have been what happened last night."
    The phone rang again. Low voices from the back of the shop as the answering machine took the call.
    "End of the month. Extra loads of paperwork to catch up on—even more, now that my partner never seems to be around for these
     things anymore. I've gotten used to being here late. Store closes at six, I'll get dinner and a glass of wine up the street
     at Sweet Basil's then come back and have two or three uninterrupted hours. So it must have been close to ten, maybe a little
     past. I was getting ready to leave."
    This is last night.
    "Right. I hear voices in the alley, someone saying 'Motherfuck,' someone else saying 'Be still, girl, don't you move or talk
     no more.' So I look out. This huge black car, Lincoln, something like that, 's pulled up out front. Four guys in it, all of
     them in black, too. And black. Driver stays in the car. The three that get out have automatic weapons. One stands by the car,
     watching up and down the street. Other two go inside. They're in there four, five minutes, come back out and get in the car.
     When the car pulls onto Jackson, people start running out of the donut shop. Lights are still on inside, but no one's there.
     This morning when I come in, I see the sign."
    Robbery, you think?
    "Who'd bother? Best day it ever had, that shop never netted two hundred dollars."
    This town, it could happen. A few weeks back, an eleven-year-old knocked off a motel over on Claiborne. Walked in with a .38,
     pistol-whipped the desk clerk (though he had to get up on a chair to do it), and walked out with eighteen dollars. Still,
     she had a point.
    You never saw anything like that before?
    She shook her head.
    They were looking for someone.
    "That's the only thing that makes sense, yes. Way they went about it, the weapons, car."
    Who was it in the alley?
    "I don't know names. Just voices."
    But you looked out, through the window?
    "Yes."
    You saw them?
    "Not the woman. She was at the back, in the shadows. I remember the man sounded black but wasn't—that surprised me, when I
     saw him. Average height, fairly thin. Hair shaved to above his ears, then really long. Kind of a topknot. Like Woody Woodpecker?"
    I asked her if by any chance she knew who owned the shop.
    "Oddly enough, I do. He came by and asked if I'd mind keeping an eye on the property, maybe pass along any inquiries from
     prospective buyers. I have his name and phone number back in the office, if you want it."
    I did.
    "Assuming I can find it."
    Which she did, finally: thumbtacked to the wall above