There Fell a Shadow Read Online Free

bet ten bucks …”
    Wexler, Lansing, and McKay listened eagerly as Holloway told his story. I pretended to listen. I kept glancing over at Colt.
    Colt kept staring at the tabletop. He did not look like he was thinking about money. He looked startled, like a man who’d just had a lynchpin plucked out of one of the sockets of his universe. Like the guy who finds his wife in bed with his best friend or gets a tragic phone call in the dead of night. I knew the feeling.
    The waitress brought our drinks. We all went for them in a single motion: grabbed and lifted them to our lips in unison. Colt gulped his beer fast and fiercely. He sat in silence while the rest of us made efforts at talk. We talked shop. The talk went on for a while, then died away. We ordered another round. We talked politics. We drank. The waitress swept up the shards of Colt’s beer glass. By the time she was done, we were ready to refill.
    So the conversation went on in fits and starts. The incident at the doorway stayed there with us. It made it hard to talk. It made it easy to drink. Easier to drink than not to. We ordered another round. The snow fell. Beer, martini, brandy, scotch. We drank.
    Around us, the murmur of the bar had started up again. No more than an occasional nervous glance came our way from the dimly lighted recesses of the room. This was the big city, after all. Colt’s encounter was nobody’s business. It certainly wasn’t mine. I shrugged it off, stopped watching him. I sat and smoked quietly, half listening to the others. I blew smoke out in a thin stream. It rose into the darkness near the ceiling. Vanished there.
    I glanced out the window. The snow was still falling, though not as thickly as before. By now, it had piled up high on the street and sidewalk. The garbage near the curb was just a white hulk. I imagined the whole city—the whole soar and dip of its skyline—was just a series of white hulks out there beyond the tavern walls.
    The talk faltered yet again. There was yet another stretch of awkward silence. Colt set his beer glass down heavily. He wiped the foam from his lips with his hand. He put on a grin. “What is it we were talkin’ about anyway?” he said. “Before we were so rudely interrupted.”
    â€œSentu!” said Lansing quickly. My attention returned to her. She sat up very straight. Took a deep breath of relief. She was wearing a pink blouse and we all watched it rise and fall. “I was wondering about that,” she said. “What was all that about Sentu? The making of you, you said. What is Sentu, anyway?”
    McKay narrowed his eyes. He was studying his latest drink carefully. “It’sh a coun … a coun … a country. Ishn’t it?” He was not much of a drinker, our McKay.
    Holloway peered into his martini.
    â€œIt was,” he said. “It was a country.”
    McKay lifted a finger in the air. “Africa. They had a revelation there. A reva … a reva … you know, a lution. A revolution.”
    â€œTen years ago,” said Wexler. He exchanged glances with Holloway and Colt.
    Then Colt gave a snort. He shook his head. “Je-sus, you fellahs never quit,” he said.
    McKay grinned at them. “What?” he said. “What?”
    â€œYeah, come on,” said Lansing.
    I sat quiet in the rising warmth of the liquor. I listened.
    Holloway tapped a palm on his belly, leaned back in his chair. He held his martini under his nose. Stared across the top of it into space. “We were there, the three of us,” he said. “Sentu. We were freelancers there. We used to feed dispatches to anyone who would take them. Looking for a big story. Looking for a big break.” He laughed a little. “Although—as for me personally—I was looking for a way to escape from Moses Holloway.”
    â€œMoses,” said McKay. “Yeah. Moses Holloway. I’ve heard of him. He your