Read Online The Postcard by Tony Abbott - Free Book Online Page B

it must have shown on my face, because her eyes twinkled.
    “I really should be going,” she said. Only she didn’t move.
    “The Pier. For lunch,” I said. “And try to ditch the undead.”
    “They’re always around. My father likes to know who I talk to.”
    “Funny,” I said. “I don’t care who he talks to. Meet me?”
    “Maybe I won’t be able to,” she said.
    I smiled at her. “Yeah, you will.”
    That put a smile on her lips. She walked away then. I followed at a distance and saw her get into a car. It was a cream yellow Phaeton and beautiful. It didn’t have any dents. Its windscreen was the opposite of a cracked one. The thing gleamed like a Roman chariot on race day.
    I must have stood there frozen like a garden ornament with a dopey grin, because the driver, a wobbly pole of a guy with a skull for a face, saw me, came over, grasped my arm with fingers of bone, and asked me if I wasn’t forgetting my appointment. When I said I didn’t have an appointment, he offered to make me one with a doctor. I took the hint and hit the bricks.
    My stomach told me I needed some eggs.
    My heart told me I needed to see her again. I can’t explain it. How could I not want to see Marnie again?
    So there I was, dashing down the alley to the sidewalk, and there were the bullets again, going chink-chink-chink at my heels, and all I was thinking about was her.
    I nearly made it to the far corner when a shot grazed my calf, and I went down like an arcade target at a state fair. The sedan screeched to a stop a full half inch from my head.
    I tried to squirm away into a flower shop, but Redbeard and Mr. Tall weren’t having any. They burst from the car and tackled me before I got to the door.
    “Just — a — carnation —” I winced.
    The tall man clamped his hammy hand on my mouth. Together, he and the barrel pulled me to my feet, dusted me off, and tried to interest me in a quaint little alley they had in mind.
    “You’re real estate agents?” I grunted. “And I could have sworn you were punks.”
    That didn’t crack half a smile between them.
    “Alley,” the tall one breathed. “Now.”
    I said, “I would, but I’m late for my shuffleboard date —” I tried to hobble away, but they were persistent and dragged me into that alley, anyway.
    “You’re a credit to your boss,” I said. “By the way, just to be clear, is your boss a fat guy the color of cooked lobster —”
    I doubled over when the giant punched me in the gut. His fist was only as big as a battering ram.
    To make a long story short, I never did meet Marnie at the Pier, but I did get a chance to ride in that dented blue sedan. It wasn’t the kind of ride they advertise on the radio, all picnic baskets and yodeling kids. The car backed into the alley with us. Skullface swung out of the driver’s seat and sauntered to the back of the car. His oily suit swished in the shadows.
    “I tell simple words for you, boy,” he said, as if he had learned how to speak from a book, or a robot, or maybe a book written by a robot. “She there, you not there. She here, you not here. She everywhere, you nowhere. Good. Now I think you understand it, eh?”
    “I think I got it,” I said. “Can I go see her now?”
    I fell to my knees when he kicked my wounded leg. He kicked me so many times, I couldn’t help noticing that he was wearing yellow socks with little blue anchors all over them. Stylish. I was about to ask him where he shopped when the bearded German grunted, “Enuf. Not here!”
    “We’re gonna take you to da post office,” said the giant.
    Post Office? Had they read my stories?
    “Ya!” chuckled Redbeard. “Vee goink to post you!”
    “To where,” I managed to say.
    “Everywhere!” said the giant with a laugh.
    “You guys been reading Spinoza?” I asked.
    I got a final glimpse of yellow sock near my nose before Mr. Skull straightened his suit — all that kicking had rumpled it. He drew a set of car keys out of his pocket,