Read Online Tengu by Graham Masterton - Free Book Online

on a cloudy day.
    “I feel that
you’re not happy with the world today,” he told her.
    She frowned at
him. Then she ran her hand through her hair. “I don’t know what makes you feel
that. Happiness is only relative, after all. At least I have a roof over my
head, and enough to eat.
    And nearly enough to drink.”
    “You mustn’t
think that I’m being inquisitive,” said Mr. Esmeralda.
    Eva gave a
dismisive wave of her hand. “I don’t mind. I don’t even know why I went to all
the trouble of getting drunk. It hasn’t made anything better, and it hasn’t
made anything worse.
    Getting drunk,
Mr. Esmeralda, is only a way of deferring the pain until tomorrow.
    Mr. Esmeralda
turned and faced her. “No pain can be deferred without paying interest, Mrs.
    Crowley.
Tomorrow, you will pay for these hours of forgetfulness with your hangover.
Life is a business, like any other.”
    Eva thought
about that, and then nodded. “Some business,” she said, not particularly to her
unexpected guest. Not even to herself .
    There was
another pause. Mr. Esmeralda walked across the living room, his tiny shoes
clicking on the floor. He picked up a nautilus shell from a side table, and
turned it over and over in his hands.
    “Did you know
something?” he asked quietly. “The first sailors who found these shells said
that if you put your ear against them, you would hear the cries of every sailor
who had ever drowned.”
    He inclined his
head toward the open shell and listened. Then he set it down on the table
again.
    “Did you hear
anything?” asked Eva.
    He shook his
head. “Only the sound of a woman in distress.”
    Eva looked
away. “It’s really not very interesting, you know.”
    “Your husband?”
    She gave a
humorless laugh, which turned into a cough. “Of course. What other kind of problems do women of my age and background ever have? We’re
too trusting to take lovers.
    We’re certainly
too conventional to fall in love with other women. Or dogs. Or whatever.”
    Mr. Esmeralda
nodded. “You wait patiently at home, hoping that your spouses will have
sufficient loyalty to keep away from pretty young receptionists.”
    Eva stared at
him. “You know about Francesca?”
    “Of course. I have taken your husband and Francesca to
dinner on several occasions.”
    “I don’t
believe it,” Eva whispered.
    “Oh, I’m afraid
it’s true,” Mr. Esmeralda told her. “But you don’t have very much to fear. At
the end of the day, Francesca is far more interested in disco music and
fashionable clothes than she is in your husband. In time, their relationship
will collapse of its own accord.”
    Eva licked her
lips nervously. Mr. Esmeralda paced around the couch, this way and that, around
and around, and he kept appearing on one side or the other, and disappearing
again, as if there were three of him, three dapper triplets, all with maroon
ties.
    “Are you in
tobacco, Mr. Esmeralda?” asked Eva, in a much higher voice than she’d meant to.
“I was once,” said Mr. Esmeralda. “But times change, you know how it is. These
days, I’m in this and that.”
    “I see,” said
Eva faintly. “Mr. Esmeralda...”
    “Yes?”
    “Well, I hope
you don’t mind, but–would you care to sit down? You’re making me rather
confused. Rather giddy.”
    Mr. Esmeralda
stopped pacing. Then he said: “My dear Mrs. Crowley, of course,” and sat down
on the opposite end of the couch with all the grace of a settling butterfly. He
laced his fingers together and smiled at her. He wore no rings.
    “Gerard has
never mentioned you,” said Eva.
    “No,” said Mr.
Esmeralda, “I don’t suppose he has.”
    “You’re
very...”
    She stopped
what she was saying. She wasn’t at all sure what she had been going to say
anyway.
    She wanted to
tell Mr. Esmeralda that she thought he was very soigne, very together, and
really very clean. She had never seen such clean cuffs and fingernails before.
But you couldn’t say that to a total