Tears Are for Angels Read Online Free Page A

again, this time with the back of my hand, and my knuckles cracked on her jawbone.
        Even with my eyes accustomed to the darkness, I could hardly see her. The moon was down and it was that period of intense darkness just before the predawn glow creeps in over the earth.
        I found both her wrists again and got up and pulled her with me. I dragged her to the shelf that held the kerosene lamp and pushed her against the wall. I leaned my shoulder against her, feeling the soft breasts under the stump of my arm and the light breath on my ear and neck. I let go of her wrists and fumbled on the shelf for a match, then lit the lamp.
        In its uneven glow, I could already see the side of her face turning dark, where my knuckles had struck her. Her eyes were steady on mine. They dropped over me, and what might have been amusement glinted briefly in them.
        I flung her across the room and pushed her down on the bunk. She laughed.
        "This is getting monotonous," she said.
        I turned away and pulled on my pants. Then I pulled up the chair and sat in it by the bunk and reached over and put my hand on her throat.
        "You want to live, Miss Cummings?"
        She said nothing, but one hand crept to ray wrist.
        "Because I could choke you to death and bury you out there in that sand before the sun comes up. Don't think I can't do it because I only have one arm. And don't think I won't do it."
        "I won't," she said. "I know you'd do it."
        "All right. So you talk. You tell me what you want out of me."
        "I told you once."
        "You told me lies. About pictures of me that weren't ever printed. About a tire that somebody had screwed a valve stem out of."
        I squeezed on her throat a little bit and the fingers tightened on my wrist.
        "What is it you're after? Did he send you?"
        "Did who?"'
        "What's he want you to find out?"
        She shook her head. "Honest to God, I don't know what you're talking about."
        "Then how about the trunk?"
        "I wanted to know more about you and Lucy. I thought maybe there'd be something else there."
        "You were wrong."
        She shrugged and took her hand off my wrist. "It was a chance."
        "All right. Miss Cummings. You came out here butting in of your own free will. You got a black eye for your trouble and you're damn lucky to get off that light. Now let's you fish up that valve stem arid clear out of here."
        She laughed. "I'll be glad to. I'll get out of here so fast it'll make your head swim."
        "And take him a message. Tell him this from me. Tell him I said just to keep waiting. And tell him not to get in an uproar. It won't be long now."
        No, I thought, it won't be long. Because now there isn't any other way and I'll just have to walk in there and let him have it right in the gizzard. The hell with the rest of it now. The hell with them finding out. That way is better than nothing.
        She was looking at me with her brows drawn in puzzlement. I took my hand off her throat.
        "Tell who that? And what won't be long?"
        She was good, all right. For just a second she had me believing it. But for only a second.
        "Lover boy," I said. "Stewart."
        She shook her head. "I don't know any Stewart."
        Nobody could act like that, I thought. Maybe… But it had to be that way.
        "Cut it out," I said.
        "Look, I don't know any Stewart. I don't know anything about what you're saying. I was never even in this state before this week."
        I sat there and looked at her and I knew she was telling the truth. She was leaning up on one elbow and there was honest bewilderment written all over her face.
        "Honest to God," she said again.
        "Then it doesn't make any sense. If he didn't send you, why did you come?"
        "Listen, I'm leaving, I'm going. Why don't you just let me get up and go, and