Read Online Supernatural Noir by Ellen Datlow - Free Book Online Page A

longshoremen, workers from the import-export warehouses. I stayed on the other side of the street, kept an eye on him, and watched the sky, which was getting dark and cloudy.
    Culpepper crossed Tenth Avenue. A long freight train rolled over the elevated bridge halfway down the block. On the north corner of the avenue was an apartment house that must once have been a bit ritzy when this was mostly residential but now looked rundown and out of place. That’s where he turned and went in.
    I glanced over as I passed to make sure he wasn’t lingering in the entryway, waiting to pop out and give me the slip. As I did, a light went on, up on the third floor. I noted it and wondered if that’s where he was. Then I continued walking till I was under the train tracks. Already the streets and sidewalks were getting empty.
    At the end of the next block, beyond Twelfth Avenue, was a pier with a tired-looking freighter moored, and beyond that, the river. A string of barges, each with its little captain’s shack, went by pulled by a tug.
    It was growing dark and all the warmth had been in the sun. I paused and turned like I’d forgotten something. Culpepper had not come out of the apartment house.
    I crossed the street then walked back to the building he’d gone in. I spotted no one watching me. The outer door was open. One side of the entry hall was lined with mailboxes, twenty-four of them. I took out my notebook and copied the names. Many times when the husband strays it’s with someone the wife already knows.
    The third floor was where I’d seen a light go on. So I gave those mailboxes my special attention. Number fifteen in particular had a recently installed nameplate. Mimi White, it read. If that’s where Culpepper was, the name seemed too good to be true.
    Somebody upstairs had the news on the radio. In the first floor back, the record of “If I Knew You Were Coming, I’d Have Baked a Cake” got played a few times.
    As I finished copying the names, an old lady came in carrying an armload of groceries. Like the building itself, she looked like she’d seen better days. I held the door for her, said my name was Tracy, that I was from the National Insurance Company and was looking for a Mr. Jameson, who was listed as living at this address in apartment number fifteen.
    She thought for a moment, then said number fifteen had been occupied for years by an Asian couple. They had moved out, and it had stayed empty for a while. A young lady had moved in just recently. I thanked her and noted that.
    As she headed upstairs, I heard footsteps and voices coming down. I went outside, crossed the street, turned, and walked slowly back towards Tenth Avenue. I noticed the third-floor light was off.
    When I paused on the corner, I saw the couple. Mr. Culpepper had left his briefcase upstairs. The lady he was with wore a short camel-hair coat, a nice black hat set on her blond hair, and high heels. She looked like her name could easily be Mimi and like you could take her places.
    Culpepper glanced neither left nor right as they walked to the corner and he hailed a cab. In my experience, a guy stepping out with a good-looking woman usually wants to see who else notices. Culpepper apparently was made of sterner stuff.
    Walking back across town, I was amazed at how easy this assignment was and wondered why that bothered me. I’d detected no presence of the Gentry in the last couple of hours. That probably meant the one or ones I’d felt earlier had found whoever they were looking for.
    Or maybe they had discovered I was right where I was supposed to be and doing what they wanted me to. Being involved with the Fair Folk had always left me feeling like a dollar chip in a very big game.
    I remembered a face, elongated and a little blurred, that I’d once seen. It was a tall elf with a smile that said, “How stupid these mortals are.”
    On the A train downtown, I got a seat and thought over that first time I felt an alien presence and how