13 French Street Read Online Free Page B

I got it just off cold and stood there with it blasting my back.
    He’d socked his way out of a family of fifteen and finagled his way from a Nebraska farm to a possible two hundred thousand dollars. With God only knows how much in the bank now. Only maybe he’d used that. Could be. He’d gamble, too. Anything. All the way.
    Petra of the long black hair …
    I shoved my face into the needles of water with my eyes closed. When I tipped my head, it sounded like rain on a roof. Tin roof, maybe.
    Well, I wasn’t going to get snarled up in his mess. The museum looked good from here and it looked good from the museum, too. And Madge looked good. Now, tak’e Madge and Petra.
    I stood there. Then I turned off the water. I found a heavy towel and tried to rub myself pink like they say in the magazines. No luck. Never did have. I padded into the bedroom, finished unpacking my suitcases, and looked at the new pair of pajamas I’d bought special for my vacation.
    Hell, I always sleep in the raw. I wasn’t going to stop now. I tossed the pajamas on the bureau and sat down at the desk.
    Take Madge and Petra, for instance.
    Well, I loved Madge. We were going to be married. Chicago was a long way off. Seven hundred miles? Nearly.
    I closed my eyes and saw the red taillight of the taxi winking around the corner.
    Take Madge. I had, twice. Take Petra….
    I slammed my fist on the desk. The blotter moved, and there was the letter I’d written Madge earlier in the evening. I ripped the envelope open and read the letter. Then I went and got my pen and wrote a postscript. I wrote four lines about how nice it was here, addressed another envelope, sealed up the letter, and stuck it beneath the blotter.
    His old man couldn’t even write, Verne had told me. He died standing between the handles of a plow. The horse was so old it didn’t even move when the buzzards came. That’s the way they found him. Standing upright between the plow handles, leaning back against the reins. There was a buzzard on each shoulder, plucking at his ears.
    Verne said his mother found his old man like that. She shooed the birds away, unhitched the plow, loaded his father on the horse. When she got the body back to the house, she dug a grave. Then she waited till the kids got home from school and she read from the Bible. Verne said he threw the first shovelful of dirt. It landed on his father’s face. It made him so mad he walked off the farm in his bare feet and hopped a freight into St. Louis. He never went home again.
    “Don’t you ever wonder how they made out?” I asked him.
    “Yes,” he said. “Yes, Alex. Sometimes I do wonder.”
    I went over and turned off the bedroom light. There was a moon. I stood at the open window, the side window. This autumn was still in the hands of the Indians.
    Petra of the hot dark eyes …
    Another man’s wife.
    Why in all hell did I have to be born with a conscience?
    So, then, maybe I was a fool all the way. I began to wonder. Maybe I was overtired. Imagining things. She probably hadn’t meant a thing. I’d read what I’d wanted to read. Maybe it was me, not Petra.
    Only none of this did any good. I could still feel it and the house was quiet. I went over and locked the door, like Jenny said. In my friend’s home? I unlocked the door, and went to bed.
    What was the matter with Verne? What kind of beast was gnawing at the already frayed edges of his being? What was eating away at him? He looked like an old oil painting that someone had carelessly spilled a small amount of acid on. It eroded and bit and gnawed away, making small traceries of lines, curlicues….
    The house was very still. Night and moonlight sighed in the windows, billowing the curtains. Somebody walked quietly down the hall. Whoever it was wasn’t tiptoeing, wasn’t trying to be especially quiet. But the footsteps paused at my door.
    Then they went on down the hall. I realized I’d been holding my breath. I got out of bed and opened the