A Killer in the Rye Read Online Free PDF Page B

flowers actually hanging from street fixtures, let alone to smell them, or the tranquility that I thought accompanied only nighttime Nashville, save for the chirping WALK signs on every street corner.
    In New York I had never appreciated the little things, either. I would always strive to get from point A to point B in record time, letting no person or thing get in my way. I’d punted away my fair share of inconvenient passing taxis, which was not always advisable in heels. I would cross the street wherever I wanted without waiting for the right-of-way, like I do in Nashville. With drivers illegally on cell phones up there, and me texting and walking into low-hanging branches, like other pedestrians, before I even reached the street, it was a miracle I survived. It really did amaze me, though, that with so much chaos going on all around, New York taxi drivers could still spot a fare’s slightly extended arm from blocks away, or catch one that rose a second earlier, and still manage to pull over.
    But in Nashville? Nashville’s a little different.
    I’d started to learn that there was a certain amount of relaxation that accompanied being a Southerner. As wary of folks as I had been bred to be up north, most all of them around here treated you like houseguests, not strangers, and expected to be treated the same way. Oh, there are the selfish cows, like Big Red and her schnor-rers. But they’re the exceptions, and people are still nice to them. It was a new concept for me, one that took lots of discipline to remind myself of, and even more persuasion to enact.
    Even though my dad and his brother Murray had lived here for over twenty years, I had stayed behind in Manhattan and had become an accountant and a wife with a starter marriage. It was not easy for me to shake that New Yorkiness from the blood and reflexes. From what I’d heard about Nashville in the early eighties, it sounded a lot like New York in the early seventies: gritty, seedy, pornographic, and unregulated, with dirty sidewalks, and a magnet for incredible talent. Although I didn’t get it at the time, I’m pretty sure all that creative flow pouring out onto the streets made my dad feel really at home here.
    Something I’d wished I could’ve felt myself at that moment.
    I was well past the garage and kept walking. I needed to enjoy the sun and shake out the metallic taste in my mouth, a combination of imagined blood and latte, which was all I’d ingested. I didn’t feel like going down to busy Broadway, where there was sure to be a dozen cabbies circling for tourists, waiting to take them to one of the few major hot spots they actually knew how to get to. I walked along Harrison instead. While waiting for the light to change on the corner of Tenth, I stood looking down at my pale toes in my spare pair of flip-flops, which I’d put on after the police took custody of my bloody shoes. I guess they wanted to compare them to any other footprints they found. Or didn’t find.
    As I waited for the light to change, minding my business, a heavily made-up, big-haired lady started toward me from the other end of the block. She was giving me the once-over as she approached. I didn’t know her, had no idea what she wanted, and quite frankly was threatened by the beeline she was making toward me.
    â€œHi. I’m Crystal. From the salon down the block.”
    â€œHi,” I said back, certain that she had never done my hair. I went only to Amanda, a transplant from Newark, New Jersey. That was close enough geographically and culturally for us to bond.
    â€œI saw you pass by a minute ago. You have such gorgeous hair. I’d really love to work with it. Here’s my card.”
    â€œThanks,” I sputtered, tucking it in the back pocket of my jeans, unable to believe that on top of the no-good, very bad day I was having, some scissor jockette would have the nerve to pick on my frazzled brunette hair at a