The Eye: A Novel of Suspense Read Online Free

fluke.”
    Singer didn’t like to be reminded of her one big score; it set his teeth on edge every time she brought it up. “So some stupid Texas oilman who wouldn’t know art from a cow turd walks in and sees a piece of crap and plunks down five grand for it. So what?”
    “ Windblown was not a piece of crap.”
    “ Windblown . Jesus Christ, what a name for that graceless monstrosity.”
    “You’re jealous, that’s all.”
    “Jealous? Of what? How many other pieces of crap did you sell at that showing? How many pieces of crap have you sold since for more than nickels and dimes?”
    “Those nickels and dimes have kept us eating,” Marian said. “They’ve paid the rent, they’ve given us a home——”
    “You call this a home? Look at this place, it’s a fucking pigsty.” He waved a hand at the cluttered apartment: tools, hunks of metal, pieces of glass, blocks of plastic and wood, dozens of small abstracts that she’d started and then abandoned. At least he kept his corner of it, under the skylight, halfway swept and tidy. “Why don’t you clean up after yourself once in a while?”
    “Why don’t you do it, if it bothers you so much? Better yet, why don’t you go out and get a job?”
    “Here it comes,” Singer said. “The same old tune.”
    “You haven’t contributed one cent to this household in years. All you do is sit around and swill beer and ruin perfectly good canvases. I don’t know why I put up with you.”
    “So don’t put up with me. Throw me out; the lease on this pigsty is in your name.”
    “You’d starve.”
    “Maybe I would and maybe I wouldn’t. There are places I could go.”
    “Oh, no doubt. Right across the street, for instance?”
    “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
    “You know what it means, Wally dear.”
    He wanted to hit her. His hand actually twitched. The urge came on him more and more often lately, but he had never quite worked up enough courage to do it. One of these days, he would. They’d have this argument again, the same damned argument over and over, and she would provoke him once too often and he would slap her chubby face until it glowed. She damned sure deserved it.
    A small wiry man with a spade beard and graying black hair that he still wore long and tied into a ponytail, he stalked away from her, over to one of the windows in the west wall. The view from the window was pretty good: Riverside Park, the West Side Highway, the wide expanse of the river, the apartment buildings on the Jersey shore. Sometimes, when the sun hit them right, all the windows in those high rises looked as though they were on fire. He’d tried to paint that scene once, to capture the burning aspect in oils, but it hadn’t come out right. Like most of his paintings, he thought bitterly. Something always failed between the eye and the hand, and they just wouldn’t come out the way he envisioned them.
    Nice view, nice roomy apartment on the top floor, complete with skylight. They couldn’t have afforded to live here if the building wasn’t rent-controlled. If he did leave Marian, where would he go that was half as comfortable, half as conducive to artistic expression? Not across the street, that was for sure; not with Cindy’s ex-husband always hanging around. Face it, Singer , he told himself, not for the first time, you’re not going anywhere. Like it or not, you’re stuck here with Marian .
    After a time he turned from the window. Marian had put on a lightweight summer jacket and was brushing her dishwater-blond hair. A jacket in this weather! It was stifling in here even with the air conditioner on. The jacket was belted and she looked fat and dumpy in it. She’d put on at least twenty pounds since their marriage, and if she put on any more he wouldn’t be able to get near her in bed. The doughy feel of her body was enough of a turn off as it was.
    He said, “Where do you think you’re going?”
    “Out shopping. You won’t do it; somebody has