Read Online Twenty-Seven Bones by Jonathan Nasaw - Free Book Online Page B

swing free, as it was known in the Epp household), left her bedroom, rapped on her husband’s door, then opened it.
    Phil, also shirtless, looked up from the old Remington portable he’d set up on a card table. “I think you missed a step there, hon’. First you knock, then you wait for an answer. If it’s come in, then you open the door.”
    Emily ignored him, as always. She crossed the room, peered over his shoulder. He covered the sheet in the typewriter with one huge paw—Phil’s hands were the size of giant tarantulas, and nearly as hairy.
    “What are you writing?”
    “About us. Our story.”
    “Do you think that’s wise?” She picked up the pages he’d typed so far, and read the first two sentences of the first page aloud: “They met at S University. He was her professor, and although he was over a quarter of a century older than was she, it was love at first sight.”
    He snatched the pages back, held them away from her at arm’s length—which in his case was lengthy indeed. “I think it’s important. There’s no guarantee we’re going to live forever, and I think it would be an unholy shame if our knowledge dies with us. It would be a disservice to science and humanity both. A secret like ours could knock the ten-thousand-year-old behavior-modification program known as organized religion into a cocked hat once and for all.”
    “And destabilize civilization as we know it.”
    “Tough titty for civilization as we know it,” said Phil. “Besides, nobody’s going to see it until after we’re both on the other side—what do we care then?”
    “I want to read it.”
    “When I’m finished.”
    “Pretty please with sugar on it?” She pressed up against him until his face was buried in her bosom.

    Back in her bedroom a few minutes later, Emily chuckled as she donned her reading glasses and propped herself up with several pillows. Titty power: even after all these years, Phil was still a pushover for her big ’uns. He’d only given her a few pages—but they were the pages Phil knew she’d be most interested in, as they covered perhaps the only critical moment in their shared history at which Emily had not been present.
    Chapter III

    As much as P still adored E, there was no denying that they had begun to grow apart after Indonesia. Her relationship with B was only part of the problem. More pressing was E’s growing obsession with what he still thought of as her Grand Delusion. No doubt because of the traumatic circumstances surrounding the death of Halu and his father, she grew more and more obsessed with the Niassian conception of the eheha.
    She researched the African and Amazonian cultures that shared similar beliefs and continued to insist that there had been something both transcendent and transformative about her experience, although she was unable to articulate it in such a way that P could make sense of it. It was as though E had joined a cult. A cult of one.
    Or perhaps two: B seemed to believe her as well. B all but worshipped her, rarely letting her out of his sight unless she insisted, and she insisted less and less frequently, even allowing B unlimited access to her bed. Threesomes became more common than twosomes, and while P had long since evolved beyond jealousy, nevertheless he found himself missing their former intimacy. He took to frequenting prostitutes again, although once again he found it so difficult to achieve orgasm with said prostitutes, that the experience was often more frustrating than it was fulfilling.
    Until that evening in a city not far from their new university. P was at this time in his late fifties, distinguished-looking, if not conventionally handsome. The prostitute appeared to him to be in her late thirties. It was a neighborhood bar, not quite a dive, but on its way. He offered to buy her a drink. She asked him if he were a police officer. If he were, asking up front would save them both time and energy, she explained. If he weren’t, it would