Darkness Under the Sun Read Online Free Page B

need to sleep on it first. I don’t sleep well at night. I mostly sleep during the day, but we’ve had such a good time, I haven’t gotten so much as a nap. I’m going downstairs now and have a good snooze. You remember, I’m a dreamer. I’ll sleep maybe till nine o’clock this evening, and when I wake up, maybe what I should do about the apartment will have come to me in a dream. Things come to me in dreams. If not, I’ll know by morning, sure enough. You come see me in the morning, my faithful friend.”
    Howie was disappointed not to receive a positive answer right then and there. But he remained hopeful that Mr. Blackwood would dream about how fine it would be to live in the shade of the beech tree, at the house with the lucky number. Howie could not remember anyone ever calling him a friend, let alone a “faithful friend,” which was like something one of the three musketeers might say to another, or one soldier to another, like in the French Foreign Legion, and it was a positive sign that suggested Mr. Blackwood might rent from them.
    Mr. Blackwood got to his feet, and for the first time Howie saw him standing. He knew that his friend must be tall, but Mr. Blackwood seemedgigantic, even though he wasn’t as tall as any professional basketball player. His thick and weirdly shaped shoulder blades were more prominent when he was standing, and his shirt stretched so tight across them that Howie thought it might rip; it seemed almost as if there were great wings folded on Mr. Blackwood’s upper back, under his shirt. His arms appeared longer, too, when he was standing, and his hands were like shovels.
    As they crossed the roof, their shadows preceded them. Mr. Blackwood’s shadow was three times longer than Howie’s. The sight of their elongated silhouettes moving side by side made Howie feel small, but at the same time it also made him feel safe. No one would be crazy enough to mess with Mr. Blackwood. And if Howie was his friend, no one would mess with Howie, either. No one would
dare
.
    For the first time, he noticed a special detail of his friend’s black boots. The toes were capped with brushed steel, like boots that a mountain climber might wear. They were supercool.
    As Howie switched on his flashlight, Mr. Blackwood opened the door to the shed at the head of the stairs. He put a hand on Howie’s shoulder—“Be careful, son, that first flight is steep”—and Howie was impressed that the man’s big hand seemed even bigger when it touched you.
    “Where’s your flashlight?” Howie asked.
    “I’ve got one with my gear downstairs. But the few windows are enough light for me. I see pretty good in the dark.”
    At each floor, multipaned windows were set high in the walls, but not many, and they were opaque with dust. Howie figured that maybe being a dreamer and sleeping in daylight might save your eyesight and help you to see better in the dark. Maybe he would become a dreamer, too, and sleep by day.
    On the ground floor, at the rear of the empty building, as Howie opened the deadbolt and put his hand on the lever-style doorknob, Mr. Blackwood said, “Come back in the morning, and we’ll have breakfast together. I’ll tell you all about this famous movie star who was my great-grandmother.”
    “What movie star?” Howie asked, surprised that his friend had kept such an amazing secret even though they had talked most of the day, talked more than Howie had ever talked with anyone but his mom and Corrine.
    “She was in silent movies a long time ago. You wouldn’t know her name, but it’s an amazing story. I love telling it.”
    “Okay, sure, wow, that’ll be great,” he said, and he opened the door into the alleyway, blinking in the brighter light.
    Before Howie could step across the threshold, Ron Bleeker rushed him, shoving him hard backward: “Butt-Ugly Dugley, you little creep, why’re you going in and out of here, what’re you up to, freak boy?”
    Bleeker was four years older than