Read Online Tongues of Fire by Peter Abrahams - Free Book Online

catching a gleam of light in the wrinkle of a leather coat. It glistened like the skin of a black snake. Quietly Rehv walked down the aisle. He turned into an empty row and moved along it in a crouch. In the middle of the row he stopped and very gently sat down, directly behind Abu Fahoum.
    Abu Fahoum did not sense his presence. His eyes were on the screen. Another actress had entered. She was skinny, and looked very young. She pulled the black man’s penis out of the overweight women’s anus and took it in her mouth. The camera moved in for a close-up. The girl raised the corners of her mouth in a grin. Abu Fahoum moaned softly.
    Rehv took out the gun. “Just be sure you are too close to miss and pull the trigger,” Harry had told him. “When you are finished drop the gun and walk away. It is untraceable.” The army had taught him guns. He was no marksman, but more than good enough for this.
    Abu Fahoum’s seat squeaked. Rehv felt him straining against it. The metallic back touched his knees, and he drew away.
    â€œNow,” came a voice from the screen. Rehv looked up. The girl pulled the black penis from her mouth. It dribbled weakly. Semen fell on her cheek. She grinned again. Abu Fahoum moaned. Rehv stood up and held the gun two inches from the back of Abu Fahoum’s head.
    A little movement made him glance down, over Abu Fahoum’s shoulder. The thick leather coat was unbuttoned. Abu Fahoum’s zipper was open and his legs were spread wide. A girl knelt on the floor between them. She was licking the tip of his penis with her pointed tongue.
    Rehv felt the gun in his hand, felt the trigger against his finger, but he could not squeeze it. Even the thought of Lena could not make him do it. He stood motionless. Deep within his consciousness he heard the screaming start. Only very dimly did he sense a slight form slipping toward him along the row. He dropped the gun. Abu Fahoum turned, startled. The little form moved quickly in front of Rehv. Steel flashed. A blade bit into Abu Fahoum’s neck. He rose turning from his seat, eyes huge and white, and toppled onto the girl. She screamed a scream that everyone could hear.
    The killer took his arm. “Come,” he said. By the grainy light of the screen Rehv saw the face that was half dead.
    â€œCome,” Harry said again, and led him up the aisle. None of the slouching figures moved at all. Whatever had happened in the dark was no business of theirs. In the lobby the fat man was counting money. He did not look up as they left.
    They sat silently in the dark green van. Harry drove. Rehv listened to the screaming slowly die away. The wind blew trash cans across the streets. Harry guided the van through SoHo. He stopped in front of the building where the gallery was and turned to Rehv.
    â€œGood-bye,” he said. “I have no use for you.”
    Rehv set the camp cot down beside the falling Gordon and lay down. He pulled the covers up to his neck and curled into a ball. Gordon loomed above him in the darkness. Crumpet Gordon with his eyes of jam, forever falling. The jam eyes gazed down fiercely, refusing to admit vulnerability even then, refusing to acknowledge doom. Harry’s eyes were like that. But they were blue, and Gordon’s were strawberry. Blue for Israel and red for England. There was still an England, Rehv thought, no matter what it had come to.
    In his mind he saw a little patch of land where he would like to lie down. A little patch of land where they were Buried. He would never see it again. Like Gordon they were all doomed, but they had no Kitchener to avenge them, no Kitchener to come and make everything the way it was. Harry thought it was 1948 all over again, but it was not. There was no Jewish Agency, no American money, no Zionism, no men, no arms. There would only be an Israel if the Arabs gave it back to them.
    For a long time Rehv lay in the fetal position beneath the strawberry gaze. The wind