Read Online Tales From the Black Chamber by Bill; Walsh - Free Book Online

monosyllabic grunts and lack of social graces fool you, Anne,” said John. “Agent Hunter here is a former Navy SEAL. His IQ is probably 140 or so.”
    Hunter scowled at John. “I don’t think we should get too familiar here, John.”
    â€œFine, fine.” John accepted the reproof with obvious annoyance. “You just cost yourself an assistant.” He turned and headed back up the stairs.
    â€œI’ll stay,” offered Anne.
    â€œThanks anyway, Ms. Wilkinson. I do better work alone. Go get some rest. You’ve had a terrible day.”
    â€œAre you sure, Agent Hunter? I’m feeling much better with some food in me.”
    He shook his head. “Really, I’ll be fine. You’ll have this upstairs by breakfast. It’ll have casters, so you can move it from room to room.”
    â€œYou’re sure?”
    â€œGood night, Ms. Wilkinson.”
    Anne went upstairs to the master bedroom, showered, and collapsed into a black, dreamless sleep. When she came downstairs the next morning around ten-thirty in a pair of jeans and a red cashmere sweater, he’d been as good as his word. The display looked like something a museum curator might have in his workroom.
    John was sitting in the kitchen drinking coffee and working through the Post and Times . He looked up from a sports page. “Hey, Caps won last night. Ovechkin had two.”
    Anne furrowed her brow. “That would be … baseball?”
    â€œClose, hockey.”
    â€œSorry, I don’t really do sports. Nothing against them, but I’ve been a bit career-minded, so that was a whole hunk of life I decided I could ignore. I’ll still watch a football game if the Broncos are playing. But hockey? I think the last game I paid attention to was an Albuquerque Scorpions game when I was home for Christmas in college one year.”
    â€œ Nekulturnaya .”
    â€œHa!” she laughed. “You speak Russian?”
    â€œA little. I take it you do.”
    â€œYeah, I took a couple years in college. I was a bit of a Dostoyevsky freak.”
    â€œI’m a little worried that our current predicament owes a little to Besy. ”
    â€œDemons ?” she asked, referring to the great novella.
    â€œHi, John. What are we talking about?” came a loud voice from behind Anne. She jumped. Agent Hunter stood behind her, scowling at John, with the M16 slung over his shoulder.
    John looked down at his newspaper. “Russian literature.”
    â€œReally? Enlighten me,” said Hunter. “ War and Peace didn’t fit in my pocket in Afghanistan.”
    Anne stepped in. “John was saying that our problems reminded him of the Dostoyevsky novel Besy , which used to be called The Possessed and is now usually called Demons or The Devils or something like it. It’s about a bunch of political fanatics—terrorists, really.”
    â€œAh.” Hunter still looked a little askance at John.
    â€œRight,” said John with an ‘I told you so, idiot’ glare at Agent Hunter. “What I was going to say is that the people we’re dealing with are a little too trigger-happy for my liking. I mean, they killed Mildred out of the blue, then tried to shoot Anne and me into Swiss cheese. No threats, no warnings, straight to murder. That’s fanaticism, I think.”
    â€œIt’s scary,” said Anne.
    â€œYep,” said Hunter, crossing to the counter. “Coffee?”
    â€œThank you,” said Anne.
    Hunter poured her a cup, then returned to the living room, where he leaned the M16 in a corner. Anne took her mug and followed him into the room.
    â€œThank you very much for this wonderful display, Agent Hunter. This should make our job a lot easier. I noticed you put key numbers on the sides of the boards to make it easier to find what we’re looking for.”
    â€œWhat are you looking for?” the FBI man asked.
    â€œWell, first, some oddity in the