Read Online Goodlow's Ghosts by T.M. Wright - Free Book Online

since last week. Only timetables and stock iarket reports since then. No time to read purely for ..." he cast about in his brain for the word she had used. “Amusement. No time. Too much work, dammit. Too much making money." He grinned nervously. "I hate it, really. This need to make money. You can make only so such and then it becomes ... redundant." He smiled; that surely had been a remark to remember. He chattered on, as if accustomed to making memorable remarks, "So, I haven't actually read anything for amusement since last week. It amuses me to read. Mysteries, science fiction, romances, the whole . . . gamut, everything. I once read Collier's Encyclopedia —"
    "Would you like to come home with me?" the brunette cut in.
    Guy Squires' mouth dropped open. "You mean it?" he asked breathlessly.
    "Obviously, you're a real reader," said the brunette.
    "I am, I am."
    ~ * ~
    Ryerson stood in his office doorway, finger poised on the light switch, and looked at the man seated in his desk chair. The man's back was turned.
    "Can we leave the light off?" the man asked.
    "Of course," Ryerson answered. He could see only the back of the man's head, a wild mop of dark hair—it might have been red, he thought.
    "Do you know me?" the man said.
    "I don't know the back of your head. Especially in the dark."
    "Do you know my voice?"
    "I've never heard it, no," Ryerson answered. The man's voice was deep, but not baritone. It had a strained quality which suggested, strangely, that the man wasn't accustomed to speaking.
    "Do any names come to you?" the man asked. "Listen," Ryerson answered, "I could ask you these same questions—"
    "You're Ryerson Biergarten ," the man cut in. "I know that much, anyway." He seemed to be pleading.
    Ryerson turned on the light.
    There was no reaction from the man. Ryerson could see that his guess about the man's hair color had been correct; it was red.
    Ryerson turned the light off.
    "Thank you," the man said.
    "For what?"
    "For leaving the light off."
    Ryerson took a couple of steps into the room. He stopped. He smelled the ocean. He had also smelled the ocean at Jack Lutz's cabin, he remembered. He asked, "Why are you here?"
    The man answered at once, "I thought you'd know."
    Ryerson was uncertain how to interpret this, whether the man was, indeed, asking why he was here, or whether the man knew why he was here and was being coy.
    "I don't understand what you're saying," Ryerson told him.
    "I'm not sure," the man said.
    "What aren't you sure of?"
    "Do you know?"
    Ryerson sighed. "If you're playing a game—"
    "I don't believe so," the man said. "I don't know. What do I know?"
    Ryerson got the uneasy feeling that the man's question was genuine and that he—the man—actually felt that Ryerson could answer it.
    "Where have you come from?" Ryerson asked.
    "Did you turn on the light a moment ago?" the man asked.
    "Yes."
    "I only remember it now. Is that odd?"
    "I don't understand," Ryerson said.
    "I believe that my name is Sam Goodlow ," the man said. "Do you know that name?"
    Ryerson didn't answer. He was suddenly afraid. Creosote came into the room and stood next to Ryerson, gaze upturned.
    "Sam Goodlow ," the man said. "I would face you, I would swivel around in your chair here, but I can't, and I wish I could."
    Creosote wheezed.
    Ryerson's mouth went dry.
    "Mr. Biergarten ?" the man said.
    "Yes?" Ryerson managed.
    "But what is the question?" the man said. "Who knows?"
    Creosote turned his flat face toward the voice of the man and cocked his head.
    Ryerson came forward quickly and leaned over the front of his desk.
    The man in the chair turned around at once and faced him.
    Ryerson screamed and ran from the room.
    Creosote followed.
    Sam Goodlow stared at the empty doorway and wondered what in the hell he had done.

ELEVEN
     
    Guy Squires and the beguiling dark-eyed brunette got off the train together and took a taxi to 114 Troy Street, on Boston's lower east side.
    "You live here?" Guy Squires asked,