The Last Storyteller Read Online Free Page A

find it, and she bit her lip. She stood back against the closed door, her hands behind her back. As adrift as a loose boat, she began to cry. She dragged a toe back and forth, drawing marks on the sawdust floor.
    This is wrong. There’s something bad here. Is this why I’ve been feeling anxious, this damned prescience again? And last night’s names are bells in my head: Malachi MacCool, Finn MacCool, the beautiful girl’s name, Emer …
    Beside me, I felt my new friend freeze. Through the door of the snug she saw Jimmy, too—insofar as she saw anybody. As quickly as she’d arrived she wanted to go, and she reached for the front door’s latch.
    Jimmy called out. “Come over here and talk to us.”
    She shook her head. “I can’t. Honest.”
    “Of course you can.” This, as I would learn, was Jimmy’s response to every difficulty. He stood up. “This is my great friend Ben,” he said, as though we’d trekked the Himalayas together. “What’s your name?”
    The girl hesitated. I thought,
She’s between heaven and hell
—and I figured it more accurately than I yet knew.
    Looking all around the bar, she took a half step forward.
    “He’ll kill me this time—he’ll kill me stone dead.”
    Jimmy said, “Well, I’d better do something,” then whispered to me, “Isn’t she a trigger, Captain?”
    I stood and thrust an arm across him. “I’ll do it.”
    In two strides I was with her.
    “They’re following me,” she whispered from a chalk-white face.
    I opened the pub door and pointed.
    “See that car over there? That’s mine. Go and sit in it.”
    “No. They’re here in the town. They’ll see me.”
    I insisted: “Keep your head low. I’ll be out in a few minutes. You’ll be fine.”
    “Come with me.”
    “No, they’ll notice two people. Run.”
    I watched until she had opened the car door, clambered in, and ducked down.
    Said the barman, ponderous as an ox, “Her name is Elma. Elma Sloane. She’s twenty.” He slavered a little and repeated her name. “Yep. Elma Sloane.”
    Jimmy said, “She looked terrified.”
    We sat down again. The barman closed the snug door, and we didn’t stop him. But the door ended four feet from the floor, and minutes later, looking under it, we saw the boots.
    Three pairs. They tramped in, heavy with menace, and stood. Big boots, brown-gray dirt on them. Boots that could kick a man to death. Two of them were outfitted with gaiters, the cut-off tops of Wellingtons sheathing the leg from knee to ankle. The third pair of boots shone with polish and rain.
    Hook-nosed Punch, and his old-coot pal, and Ted the barman—they all fell silent. Then Ted said, “Hallo there, lads. Damp class of a day, huh? Whatchyou havin’?”
    The boots stood side by side, a tiny, powerful regiment. Not a shift. Not a move. And no answer. We raised our eyebrows:
What do you think of this, eh?
How the boots hadn’t seen Elma Sloane cross the street to my car, I just don’t know. Jimmy Bermingham hunched his shoulders and half-sniggered.
    How long did they stand there? A minute? Longer? I can’t say. The door of the snug crashed open, a Neanderthal face looked in, as fierce and tangled as a briar bush, retreated from its glimpse of us, and closed the door again. They left. And closed the door behind them.

8
    Malachi MacCool took one look at the girl and reeled back like a man kicked in the chest by a stallion. He had seen his heart’s desire. Twice he had to look at her, because the first time a flash of forked lightning came down from the sky, got under his long, shiny eyelashes, and blinded him for a moment
.
    But when he opened his eyes, the girl hadn’t gone away. Emer was her name, and she stood there like a pillar of the gentle light you see on a summer dawn. She was as sweet as cane sugar, thoughtful and serene, and yet playful, and of a fond nature
.
    Mal couldn’t speak, except in his head, where he kept saying, “Oh.” At last he took the girl’s hand and welcomed