Tightrope Walker Read Online Free

this. At the time it had seemed unlikely that anything in the shop was worth more of a fuss than the bathrobes marked down from $12.99 to $2.00, but I had been grateful for the names of the auction houses at which he’d found the merry-go-round horses, and had let it go at that. “Then do you mean there really is a possibility—?” My hopes, which had nose-dived, crawled up one rung of the ladder and hung there, waiting for his reply.
    He shrugged his thin shoulders. “Maybe yes, maybe no.” Getting to his feet he opened a door in the passageway to the front door and went into another room. I heard the murmur of a woman’s voice, which surprised me because at the time I bought the shop from him he was definitely not married. Maybe he still wasn’t; it gave Mr. Georgerakis a new and interesting facet.
    A minute later he padded back, closing the door behind him and carrying a black notebook. “It was six, maybe eight months ago,” he said, thumbing through the pages, and nodded. “You’re in luck, sometimes a customer gets huffy about leaving a name, but this one I knew. One hurdy-gurdy, a hundred dollars, November nine … Oliver Keene—he’s been in before, usually to sell me paintings when he’s broke. Painter chap. Buys old costumes for his models, too, when he’s in the chips. I don’t know where he lives.”
    “Oliver Keene,” I repeated. I took out the small spiral notebook I’d bought on the way and copied downthe name, my heart beating faster at this triumph. I really felt pleased; I couldn’t forget the horrified feeling that had struck me when I thought for that moment that Mr. Georgerakis couldn’t help me. I said, “This is wonderful—I really appreciate it.” Putting away my notebook I asked innocently, “You live alone here, Mr. Georgerakis?” After all, the hurdy-gurdy had been in his possession for six months and I wasn’t taking any chances.
    He rolled his eyes heavenward. “If I lived alone would I sell you my business? Of course not. For ten years I climb these five flights courting Katina. With twelve thousand dollars she marries me.” His twinkle was back; he was really a funny man now that I understood his deadpan humor.
    “That’s very nice,” I said, walking to the door with him. “I hope you and Mrs. Georgerakis will be very happy.”
    I thanked him again and left, heading at once for the telephone kiosk at the corner, where I looked through the K’s. There was an Oliver Keene living on Danson Street, and I copied down the address. After that I went to the post office and Xeroxed two copies of Hannah’s note, and carried them to the park where I sat down on a bench. I’d brought scissors with me; I took one of the Xerox copies and cut out parts of two sentences:
I was so tired and hungry but this morning I know
 … and then,
should anyone ever find this my name is Hannah.…
After doing this I walked back to Fleet Street. It was just nine o’clock, and there were no customers waiting for the shop to open. I hung a B ACK A T N OON sign on the door and walked south to find 901 Fleet Street, the address I’d looked up in the yellow pages the night before. I would never have thought of consulting a graphologist if I hadn’t passed the sign innumerable times on my way to AmmanSingh’s. I’d noticed it months before, and out of curiosity I’d looked up the word in the dictionary, just to be sure: the study of handwriting, it said, for the purpose of character analysis. In the yellow pages the man sounded professional: Joseph Osbourne, followed by the word ACCREDITED , whatever that meant—or by whom—and CONSULTANT . I was hoping he could tell me something about the person who’d written the note.
    A distance of six blocks in a city can make as much difference as Dante walking in or out of his Inferno. My block on Fleet Street was a bazaar full of secondhand this and thats, uncertain whether collapse or renewal lay ahead for it, surprisingly prim in its