Chili Con Corpses Read Online Free Page A

didn’t have the faintest notion what Lindy was talking about, James found himself spontaneously clapping in response. Here was the change he had been looking for. He had no idea what it was exactly, but he was ready for it. At least it would allow him to delay doing what he dreaded most: giving Lucy an ultimatum.

James opened his eyes in the dark. He rolled over on his side and tried to read the clock, but the neon green digits blurred into the black background. As he fumbled for his glasses, a familiar throb assaulted his temples. Another headache was coming on. James peered at the clock through the water-stained lenses of his glasses. 2:14. He let his body fall flat against the bed and closed his eyes. He didn’t feel tired at all.
    Sighing, James threw back the covers and slid his cold feet into a pair of ragged slippers. He then put on his robe and tiptoed out of his room and into the hall, though he could have marched through the house banging on a bongo and his father wouldn’t so much as blink in his sleep. The old man can’t hear anything beyond the cacophony of his own snores , James thought as he turned on the bathroom light. He helped himself to four ibuprofen liquid-gel capsules and stood in the weak light studying the box.
    “Someone should just invent an ibuprofen shot,” he muttered at the rubber duck sitting on the tub ledge. “They could sell it at all the coffee bars, beer joints, pool halls, libraries.” He filled a glass from the tap and drank it down.
    Back in his room he checked the clock again. 2:21. It was going to be one of those nights. James had had three of them over the past week. He woke abruptly after a few hours of sleep, restless and yet drowsy at the same time. His mind would review the day’s events, make lists of tasks that needed to be accomplished at the library, ponder over what to eat for breakfast, and fantasize about Lucy appearing at her front door wearing a filmy robe made of white silk, her mouth curved in a seductive smile as she beckoned him inside. This vision was immediately followed by a headache. Tonight, to James’s disappointment, the headache had arrived before the Lucy fantasy sequence.
    By 3:35, James gave up, switched on the reading lamp clamped to his headboard, and delved into The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. There was something about the simple purity of the writing that soothed James and distracted him from making scores of mental lists that he would forget by morning. Just before dawn, James fell asleep to the image of a large caravan at rest in the midst of crossing the interminable Sahara. He absorbed the sense of the vast, star-pocked sky stretching over the quiet desert. As his room seemed as cold as the desert night, James half believed he was lying down beside the shepherd boy of Coelho’s tale.
    He had only been asleep for about two hours when he was awoken by the clanging of pots and pans downstairs in the kitchen. Feeling totally out of sorts, James pivoted the clock and was horrified to see that it was almost eight. He was going to be late to work if he didn’t get a move on.
    “Pop!” he exclaimed as he entered the kitchen.
    His father, Jackson Henry, had taken all of the frying pans, saucepans, and large pots out of the cupboard and strewn them across the floor. A carton of eggs and a jug of milk sat open on the counter while a package wrapped in white paper from Food Lion’s deli had been tossed onto the kitchen table. Puddles of milk, several broken eggs, a chunk of butter, and cheddar cheese shavings created a dairy minefield on the floor.
    Their beautiful kitchen, which Jackson had completely renovated using the profits collected from the sale of his oil paintings, was in shambles. Surveying the mess, James couldn’t understand how a man with such a sour disposition could paint birds and their natural settings in such a moving and realistic manner. How could such serenity and grace spring forth from such a gruff and temperamental