The Followed Man Read Online Free Page A

embarrassed, not know­ing what to say, as though he'd been
importunate at a funeral. Luke tried to smile it away, but Martin was
too embarrassed for that.
    Annie said, "I've got some
more addresses for you, Mr. Carr," and handed him some Xeroxed
sheets.
    "How come you call him 'Mr.
Carr?' " Martin asked her. "He ain't more than fifteen
years older'n you, Annie."
    "Because he's so sad and
distant," she said.
    "And old?" Luke said.
    "Oh!" she said,
turning dark, a rather beautiful flawed rose. "I forgot. I
forgot about your tragedy, Mr. Carr."
    "Is there something I
should know?" Robin Flash said.
    Luke explained as quickly and
plainly as he could.
    "Wow. Heavy," Robin
Flash said.
    They were silent for a long
moment until Luke said, "Anything else I ought to know, Martin?"
    "Well . . ." Martin
said, not looking Luke exactly in the eyes. "You handle it the
way you want. Only one thing. You're going to find a lot of . . .
defensiveness in some quarters. Depends on what you think you want to
look for. I mean about the cause of it all. They haven't found out
exactly why the floor gave way, at least as far as we can find out.
Or at least they're not telling it straight."
    "I don't want to be a
detective anyway," Luke said. A nerve had begun to jump
somewhere alongside his sternum, and a breath came short. "I
know how these things can happen. A mistake here, a bad coincidence
there. . . ."
    "Yeah, right!" Martin
said, apparently very much relieved. "You and Robin handle it
the way you want. And, Luke ... I mean, if it gets to you, all the
death . . . Maybe it's too soon after. You know. Well, no matter. . .
."
    "Do I look that bad?"
Luke said.
    "I know you're a pro, Luke.
You're the best. That's why you al­ways get so goddam involved.
Anyway, you know what I mean."
    "Okay, Martin." Luke
turned to Robin Flash, trying to assume a bravado he certainly didn't
feel. It was dread he felt, and he could place it anatomically. It
was in his diaphragm, slightly to the left of center, and it seemed
to have a color—a mottled gray—and a shape somewhat like
a certain clinker of slag he had once re­moved from a
coal-burning furnace. "Robin, shall we go and diag­nose the
sickness of this town?"
    He must have dreamed last night,
because fragments of dream queried him now, passing close, not
letting him quite grasp them. He was on a snowy road, driving a
bug-eyed Sprite, of all cars. He'd never owned one. No, he wasn't
driving, someone else was. He was in an editorial meeting, and a
girl—a woman—was crying. She had a wide face and long,
horizontal dark eyes—a tigerish look—and she was crying
out of sorrow. What was her tragedy? He meant to get up and ask her
what the matter was, but he asked too soon, before he could get
around the table to her, and he shouldn't have asked until he could
touch her at the same time he asked. Then her face turned dead white,
her eyes black as blots of tar. Something bad, wrong, inexcusable
would happen. Her fault, though, not his. But then, he was the one
who asked. Everyone else had noticed how her face grimaced and
crawled, but they'd said nothing.
    Robin Flash had said something
he hadn't heard, and now got up and began to drape the straps of his
camera boxes over his thin, foxy shoulders.
    "Anybody question who you
are, have them call here," Martin said. "And Luke,
remember; if you want to drop this anytime it's okay with me.
There'll be other projects."
    "We'll see," Luke
said.
    In the elevator, and then across
the lobby to the sultry clangor of Madison Avenue, Luke held himself
steady against his low-grade dread. Robin Flash came along beside
him, a part of the city and its constant movement; if any animal
could have evolved to fit this environment, Robin Flash, with his
metal sheen and glitter, seemed to be the one. He looked everywhere
with quick, squirrel­like glances, yet this was not a squirrel's
defensive alertness, it was more like avidity.
    They took a cab crosstown.
Robin, still looking