Read Online The Straw Men by Michael Marshall - Free Book Online

for a little while. The man listed the parts of Los Angeles he had visited, a selection of the usual tourist traps. He did not reveal that the Barnes and Noble bag he was carrying was full of books he had owned for some years, nor that he had spent a full hour in the bookstore sitting in the Politics and Economics section, his face averted from the other customers, watching out of the window for Sarah to arrive. He instead asked for suggestions of what else he should see in the city.
    Sarah, who took her responsibilities seriously, suggested the La Brea tar pit, Rodeo Drive, and the Watts Tower, which she felt would give a good span of where LA had come from, and where it was going. Plus, she thought privately, on Rodeo he could replace his corduroys with something a little more bonne marché , as Sian—who’d vacationed in Antibes last year—was fond of saying.
    Then the man went quiet for a moment. Sarah was thinking that it was time for her to window-shop her way down to dinner. She was gathering herself to say good night, when he turned and looked at her.
    “You’re very pretty,” he said.
    This might or might not be true—Sarah’s opinion was currently fiercely divided on the subject—but it was without question straight out of the “Watch out, a wacko” box of conversational sallies.
    “Thanks,” she said, bright-eyed with deflection. For a moment the evening seemed a little cooler, then steadied as she took control. “Anyway, nice talking to you.”
    “I’m sorry,” he said, quickly. “That’s rather an odd thing to say, I know. It’s just that you remind me of my own daughter. She’s about your age.”
    “Right,” Sarah said. “Cool.”
    “She’s back in Blighty,” the man went on, as if hehadn’t heard her. “With her mother. Looking forward to seeing them again, don’t you know. Top hole. Gor blimey. Princess Di, God rest ’er soul.”
    His eyes flicked away from her then, took a quick glance around. Sarah assumed he was embarrassed. In reality he was estimating that in about twenty seconds all paths would converge to convenience him, the lines of sight all elsewhere. He was good at judging this kind of thing. It was one of his special skills. He shifted a few inches closer to the girl, who stood up.
    “Anyway,” Sarah said. “I got to go.”
    The man laughed, as he felt the lines fall into place. He grabbed Sarah’s hand and tugged it with surprising force. She squawked quietly and fell back onto the bench, too shocked to resist.
    “Let go,” she said, fighting to stay calm. The ground seemed to be falling away, a vertiginous, fluid feeling. She felt as if she had been caught cheating, or stealing.
    “Pretty girl.” He gripped her hand more tightly. “A keeper.”
    “Please, let go of me.”
    “Oh shut up,” he muttered, all pretense of an English accent gone. “You ludicrous little slut.” His fist jackhammered up in a compact, short-armed punch, smashing straight into her face.
    Sarah’s head jerked back, her eyes wide open and stunned. Oh no, she thought, the interior voice quiet and dismayed. Oh no.
    “Take a look, Sarah,” the man said, his voice low and urgent. “Look at all the lucky people. The people who aren’t you.”
    He nodded down the Promenade. Only a block down, the street was crowded. People going in and out of stores, taking exploratory looks at restaurant menus. Around Sarah and the man there was nobody to be seen.
    “Once there was just bush here, do you realize that?Ragged coastline, rocks, shells. A few tracks in the sand. If you’re quiet you can hear the way that it was, before any of this shit was here.”
    Blinking against her watering eyes, Sarah tried to work out what he was getting at. Maybe there was something she could do, some unexpected final question in this test, some way of scraping a pass. “But people don’t see,” he continued. “They don’t even look. Blind. Willfully blind. Trapped in the machine.”
    He grabbed her