Linger Awhile Read Online Free

followedher upstairs to the flat which was partly studio with a workbench and a lot of tools and clutter. Various craftsmanlike smells: metal, soldering flux, blowtorch etc. She leaned the bat in a corner. ‘Why the Louisville Slugger?’ I said.
    ‘I always carry a bat on the first date,’ she said.
    ‘I always carry a bottle,’ I said, and gave her the Stolichnaya.
    ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘How did you know I liked vodka?’
    ‘You sounded like vodka. In the nicest possible way.’
    ‘I’ll take that as a compliment.’ She got two glasses. ‘Tonic with it?’ she said. ‘Ice?’
    ‘Just as it comes,’ I said.
    ‘My kind of drinker,’ she said, and poured.
    ‘Here’s looking at you,’ I said.
    ‘And here’s looking right back.’ We clank and drank. ‘What’s this all about?’ she said. ‘Do you know?’
    ‘I don’t know where Istvan is, if that’s what you mean. You said you didn’t either, but do you?’
    ‘No,’ she said, ‘I wasn’t lying. I haven’t a clue.’
    ‘Istvan hasn’t told you about Justine Trimble?’
    ‘No, who’s she?’
    I told her everything I knew and my suspicions as well. Grace shook her head. ‘That bastard,’ she said. She tilted her head to one side and studied me for a few moments. ‘You’re the kind of guy who gets pushed around, aren’t you.’
    I nodded.
    ‘Me too,’ she said.
    ‘You and Istvan … ?’
    ‘You could say we had some kind of understanding. Or rather, that’s what I understood but maybe he didn’t.’ She’d been pouring steadily and drinking a good deal faster than I. ‘Sometimes all you can do is make the best of a bad sitsatuation,’ she said. ‘Sisuashion. You know what I mean.’
    ‘Absolutely. As the I Ching says, “When the river dries up, the superior woman drinks vodka.”’
    ‘I’m drunk. Would you like to take advantage of me?’
    ‘Very much. I regret that I am no longer a player.’
    ‘Don’t regret. There’s more than one way to skin a cat and you look like an imaginative guy.’ She lifted her shirt tails and dropped her jeans.
    ‘If you put it that way,’ I said, and got imaginative.
    In the morning we both woke up with no way to hold our heads that didn’t hurt and we had coffee while considering what would come next. ‘Are you going to do anything about Istvan?’ said Grace.
    ‘So far,’ I said, ‘I’ve got nothing to go on but his absence and my suspicions.’
    ‘Which are probably correct.’
    ‘Have you got keys to his place?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Have you been inside since he left that message on the door?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘And … ?’
    ‘Come with me and see for yourself.’
    We went round to Fallok’s place and down the stepsto his grotto. Inside were a rank and earthy smell and various devices that I hadn’t seen before. Conspicuous among them was an oil drum half full of what smelt like some primordial soup. Close by was a cardboard panel about six feet high with two slits side by side half-way up. I recognised it from high-school experiments as a diffraction grating. There were wings that could be folded to support it in an upright position. I stood it up and switched on what looked like a special kind of projector. On the cardboard Justine appeared in a still from
Last Stage to El Paso
. Beyond the diffraction grating on a white board was the interference pattern.
    ‘What do you think?’ I said to Grace.
    She said, ‘I don’t like the way that thing is looking at me with its two slitty eyes.’
    ‘OK, but apart from that?’
    ‘I think he left all this in place because he wants us to see what he’s doing.’
    ‘Which is?’
    ‘What you told me: reconstituting Justine.’
    ‘And you believe he wants us to know about that?’
    ‘Istvan’s a funny guy. Maybe he’s afraid of what he’s got into and doesn’t want to lose touch with the straight world.’ She was clinging to my arm. ‘Do you think he’s done it? Reconstituted Justine Trimble?’
    ‘If he found that