Mr. X Read Online Free

Eyes closed, arms folded over his chest, Uncle James filled the high-backed rocker. A man with wavy blond hair and an aristocratic profile was sawing away at a violin.
    “Mr. Florian Zabach has a gift which comes straight from God,” said Aunt Nettie. “I never heard prettier sounds in all my life.”
    “Remember the time we went up to Chicago and saw Eddie South?” said Uncle Clark.
    “Eddie South brought a beautiful tone out of his fiddle,” said Aunt May. “I have wondered if he might have been one of our category. A number of musicians are, I believe.”
    “Little pitchers,” Nettie said. “Mind what you say.”
    Uncle James snorted and stirred, and the other three looked at him until his chin dropped as far as his redwood neck would permit.
    “That tone was why they called Eddie South ‘The Dark Angel of the Violin,’ ” Uncle Clark said. “But if Stuff Smith got up there, he’d gobble your Florsheim Swayback down in one bite.”
    “Nettie,” said Aunt May, “I believe Mr. Welk is putting on some weight.”
    My eyelids sagged, and I pushed myself upright before I fell asleep in the living room, like Uncle James.
    My mother woke me up when she let herself into our room. I waited while she took off her clothes, put on her nightshirt, and found her way to bed. I heard her yank up the sheet and wrestle her pillow into shape. She had carried into the room an odor of smoke and beer mingled with fresh air and summer rainfall, and I tried to sort out these traces of her evening’s history as she relaxed into sleep. Her breathing stretched out and slowed down. When I heard it catch in her throat and release itself in what was almost a snore, I crept across and crawled in beside her. Star seemed enormous, a huge female animal still wrapped in the atmosphere of the adventures through which she had passed on her way home. I nestled my back against hers. My body instantly doubled in weight and began to slip toward the center of the earth, where my hero father lay buried. Star shuddered and spoke asingle word I trapped in my hands as I plummeted out of consciousness.
Rinehart
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4
    At the whispery pop of a seam I looked over my shoulder, saw a shadow fleeing down sunny Cherry Street, and fell bang on my bottom in surprise. At least once a week during my childhood and adolescence, this happened the moment my head hit the pillow. My shadow elongated over the white sidewalk and bent sideways to slip around the corner. The terror of an irredeemable loss immobilized me on the warm pavement. I got up, ran to the corner, and saw my shadow floating like a solid substance above the sidewalk ahead. When I pounded forward, the sidewalk tilted like a slide, and the familiar houses and dark porches softened in the heat.
    Edgerton was gone.
    I ran down a beaten track leading to a narrow river and an arched wooden bridge. The upright shadow scampered on. On the far side of the bridge, a line of stunted trees marked the beginning of a forest. I glimpsed the peaked roof and broken upper windows of an abandoned house above the treetops. My shadow moved up the arch of the bridge, leaned on the curved iron railing, and crossed one foot over the other. It faced me without having turned around.
    Like an optical illusion, the mocking shadow receded with every stride I took. When finally I stood on the bridge, the shadow regarded me from fifty feet away and a point well above my head.
    “You seem to be trying to catch me,” my shadow said.
    “I need you,” I said.
    “Then you’d better come along.” The shadow did its trick of switching front and back and moved on.
    By the time I reached the top of the arch, the shadow was far down the descending slope. The iron handrails had become slim and delicate, and the planks bent beneath my weight.
    The shadow patted the railing. “The longer it gets, the thinner it becomes. Like toffee. In the end, it disappears.”
    “Can I get to the other end?”
    “Maybe, if you get into some fancy