Soon the Rest Will Fall Read Online Free

can’t say.”
    â€œWhy not?”
    â€œBecause he’s a strange motherfucker.”
    â€œWhat does that mean?”
    â€œIt means we’ll just have to wait and see what he does.”
    The bus from San Rafael thundered into the parking lot. The coach docked at a bay, and a string of passengers disembarked. First to emerge was a group of teenage mothers and their kids. Following them was a gaggle of Boy Scouts. Then came two longhaired bums with backpacks. Clutching his pillowcase, Robert brought up the rear.
    He was in a white Hanes T-shirt and battered engineer boots, Ben Davis jeans and a motorcycle chain belt. A rumpled orange and blue polyester ski jacket was over his bony shoulders. Imitation Ray-Ban sunglasses were perched on his skinned head. Tooling through the lobby to Harriet and the kid, he planted a kiss on his wife’s cheek. “Merry Christmas, baby.”
    She threw her arms around his waist and squeezed tight. “You glad to see me, daddy?”
    He saw no reason to lie. Not yet. That would come later. As if it were raining buckets. He dropped the pillowcase at her feet. “Yeah, honey, I am.”
    â€œSwear on it?”
    For the second time in twenty-four hours somebody was asking Robert to take an oath. First Slatts and now
Harriet. He wasn’t hip to it. It was an omen. It signified that certain people he was intimate with didn’t trust him. Kissing her again, now on the mouth, he said, “Cross my heart and hope to die.”
    Robert reflected on the promise he’d made to Slatts. His boyfriend was getting out of the clink in fourteen days. Which was way too soon. It wasn’t enough time for him to get organized. How was he going to tell his wife about their affair? He didn’t know. Robert was diving into uncharted waters, and it scared the tarnation out of him.
    Harriet plucked at his sleeve. “I want to reintroduce you to somebody.” The wind toyed with her ponytail and made it swish back and forth on her shoulders. She nudged the girl forward, presenting her to Robert. “This is your daughter. The fruit of your loins. Do you remember her?”
    He was horrified. His old lady was a real comedian. She was funny enough to have her own show on television. Just because he hadn’t been around the kid for three years, didn’t mean he’d forgotten about her. “Yeah, I remember everything.”
    â€œShe just had her seventh birthday. I guess you remember that, too.”
    Â 
    The public address system in the Greyhound station announced the departure of a bus, an express to Reno. Beads of sweat glittered on Robert’s pate. He stared at the kid—she was no taller than his belt buckle—and saw a mirror of his own mug. She was his spitting image. He didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. A shiver ran the length of his spine. He had a hunch about Christmas.
Much as he dreaded the holiday, it was a chance to bond with his wife and child, to be a husband and father to them. Then he had a fearful thought—Slatts wouldn’t cotton to it.

FIVE
    The Trinity Plaza Apartments was a 377-unit building at the corner of Eighth and Market, a memento to Cold War architecture with a flat roof and functional Bauhaus lines. The tenants were retirees, restaurant and laundry workers, single moms on the dole, and low-end office employees. Typical of many older dwellings on Market Street, the complex was slated for demolition in January.
    Harriet and Robert’s one-bedroom apartment was on the second floor. The living room was furnished with mustard-colored shag carpeting, a Sears and Roebuck couch upholstered in gray vinyl, a glass coffee table with brass legs, and a portable television. The kitchen had a four-burner gas stove, a self-defrosting refrigerator, a yellow formica-topped dining table, and four chairs. The balcony overlooked the UN Plaza, the Orpheum Theater, and the public library.
    The parking lot at the