A Tan & Sandy Silence Read Online Free PDF Page B

knobbly old ruins like you, McGee."
    "So grab one of those tidy and considerate ones."
    "Oh, sure. They are lovely men, and they are so anxious to please me. There's the money, and it makes them very jumpy and nervous. Their hands get cold and damp. If I frown, they look terrified. Couldn't you be more anxious to please me, dear? Just a little bit?"
    "Like this, you mean?"
    "Well ... I didn't exactly mean that.... I meant in a more general sense ... but ... now that you bring it up ... God, I can't remember now what I did mean ... I guess I meant this. Yes, darling. This."
    The narrow horizontal ports above the custom bed let a cold and milky morning light into the Page 14

    stateroom at the bow of the center hull of the Jilly III. As I looked up, 6:31 became 6:32. Jillian's small round rump, her flesh warmer than mine, was thrust with a domestic coziness into my belly. My chin rested against the crown of her head. Her tidy heft had turned my left arm numb.
    My right h d lay upon the sweet inward curve of her waist.
    Worse fates, I thought. A life with Ally BrentArcher wouldn't be dull. Maybe it is time for the 0lands. In spite of all good intentions, all nervo s concern, all political bombast, my dirty two-legged species is turning the lovely southeast coast into a sewer. On still days the stinking sky is bourbon brown, and in the sea there are only the dwindling runty fish that can survive in that poisoned brew.
    It happens slowly, so you try not to notice it. You tell yourself it happens to be a bad day, that's all. The tides and the winds will scrub it all clean. But not clean enough anymore. One life to live, so pop through the escape hatch, McGee. Try the islands. Damned few people can escape the smudge and sludge, the acids and stenches, the choking and weeping. You have to take care of yourself, man.
    Nobody else is going to. And this deft morsel, curled sleeping against you, is a first-class ticket for all of the voyage you have left. Suppose you do have to do some bowing and scraping and fetching. Will it kill you? Think of what most people have to do for a living. You've been taking your retirement in small installments whenever you could afford it. So here's the rest of it in her lovely sleep. The ultimate social security.
    I eased my dead arm out from under her and moved away. She made a sleep-whine of discontent. I covered her with the big colorful sheet, dressed, turned out the rosy light, and made sure the main hatchway locked behind me when I left.
    Back aboard the Flush I put on swim trunks and a robe to keep me warm in the morning chill.
    The sun was coming up out of the sea when I walked across the pedestrian bridge over the highway and down onto the public beach. Morning birds were running along the wet sand, pecking and fleeing from the wash of the surf. An old man was jogging slowly by, his face in a clench of agony. A fat girl in a brown dress was looking for shells.
    I went in, swam hard, and rested, again and again, using short bursts of total energy. I went back to the Flush and had a quart of orange juice, four scrambled eggs along with some rat cheese from Vermont, and a mug of black coffee.
    I fell asleep seven and a half inches above my oversized bed in the master stateroom, falling toward the bed, long gone before I landed.
    Four
    THURSDAY, WHEN I got up a little before noon, the remembered scene with Harry Broll and his little gun seemed unreal. Six loud whacks, not loud enough to attract the curious attention of people on the neighboring craft. The Flush had been buttoned up, the air-conditioning on. No slug had gone through glass.
    I found where five had hit. At last I spotted the sixth one in the overhead. It had hit tumbling and sideways and had not punched itself all the way out of sight, so by elimination it was the one that had grooved the leather sole of my sandal and nummed my heel.
    I had rolled to my right after going over backward in the chair. It gave me the chance to kick a small