Amphetamines and Pearls Read Online Free Page B

Her face was beautiful and I stared at it for what seemed a long time. A fine face, without a disfiguring line of blood: Candi’s face.

3
    I stared at her for what seemed a long while. Mouth, eyes, bone structure: all the same. The hair was the identical colour, but was cut shorter and turned up just above her shoulders. When I took in her whole body I could see she was shorter by several inches and when my eyes swept back to her face they found it lacking the hardness that Candi’s had developed.
    She had frowned at the coldness and surprise in my stare. Until she guessed the reason and then she smiled at me again. I should have known then that smiles like that meant trouble for men like me. But then I never did learn that kind of thing until it was too late.
    â€˜Hello, Scott. It’s a long time since we saw each other.’ She wrinkled her nose in a way her sister would never have done. ‘Are you going to invite me in?’
    By way of answer I stepped aside and watched her pass by me, on into the living room.
    â€˜Coffee?’ I asked.
    â€˜Please. White with sugar, if that’s all right.’
    It was and when I brought it through from the kitchen she was reading the newspaper, opened out at its centre pages.
    â€˜They don’t waste much time, do they?’
    I put down the two cups on the small glass table and sat beside her. The middle of the spread was taken up with a large photograph of Candi Carter exposing as much flesh as her manager could persuade her would be good for her record sales. She was draped around the mast of a yacht, wearing the smallest of small bikinis. On the pants, slightly to the right of centre, were her initials, one C running through the other. Her mouth was parted and her tongue poked out, as it were, provocatively. Meat for the world’s meat market: now dead meat. Dead at the world’s table.
    The inch-deep headlines to the left of the page shouted out her murder. The text underneath said nothing in great detail, while it suggested a good deal more. Had she been waiting for a lover? Had she known her killer? What was the mystery of the woman in white alone in an anonymous flat?
    The right hand side listed the facts of her career—from teenage band singer in the provinces to international recording star—and gave the names of her currently available albums. For those who wanted to climb aboard another cult wagon.
    â€˜Tasteful, isn’t it? Someone must have worked hard through the night to put all this …’ she held the paper up between two fingers as though it might be contagious … ‘muck together!’
    She stood up and flung the pages across the room. I looked up into her face, looking for the saving smile. This time she could not manage it. The tears fought their way past her will into the corners of her eyes, then sprung out on to her cheeks.
    â€˜Scott!’
    The cry was despairing: as though she could hold in her anguish and her fears no longer. She half-fell, half-dived down into my arms and I was holding her tight, tight; her breath was warm against the inside of my neck and her face was damp and small against my shoulder. I sat like that until her breathing eased and the chest that pumped a plea through me had calmed; I sat and stroked her hair and all the time part of me wanted to be more than a million miles away.
    But when I had stepped aside at the door to let her through I had already made my move.
    I took her by the arms and held her away from me.
    â€˜Would you like a drink?’
    She wiped at her face with a tissue, yellow and already overused. Again the smile.
    â€˜Maybe another cup of coffee. If you’ve got the time.’
    Time. I had all the time in the world and then some. Time to live and time to die: time to get suckered into a few more beatings: time to be a fall-guy for murder even. What I didn’t have time for wasn’t worth having. And what I sensed Vonnie was going to offer