Cookie Cutter Man Read Online Free PDF Page A

“I don’t think you lied to me.”
    “That’s not really the same thing, now is it?” Daniel asked,
taking another hit from the pipe.
    “I think maybe it was just the drugs that got to you. Mostly
the coke.”
    Sure. The drugs. Mostly the coke! There had been a time not
two days ago when he was bound and determined to believe that getting clean
would make everything good again, normal again, that all the weird shit would
evaporate in a cloud of white powder and self-induced paranoia.
    Echo went on: “That stuff does weird things to a person’s
mind, Daniel.”
    “I think maybe you’re right,” he said, and he hoped she was,
but again, who was he kidding?
    “Well, I talked quite a bit to Dr. Stanzliek—”
    “Who?”
    “Your doctor, the bald guy.”
    The doctorbug, Daniel thought. “What’d he say?”
    “That you might have a concussion. That we need to watch
for, uh, mood swings , was how he put it.”
    “What do you mean?” Had that come out too defensive? Was this a mood swing?
    Echo shrugged. “That’s just what he said. That erratic
behavior is a sign of a concussion.” Echo looked at the clock. “Dammit! God, I
don’t wanna go to work.”
    “I thought you were off on Wednesdays?”
    “Oh, I’m opening for Anne. But you take it easy
today, OK? Promise me.”
    “I promise.” He was only sitting on the couch, but inside
he felt like he was falling.
    Echo gave him another kiss and went to take a shower. Daniel
turned on the television. He didn’t really believe his conversation with it
last night was anything more than a dream, did he? Of course not.
    Then how come you haven’t taken any pills? He asked himself.
He flipped past cell phone commercials, old sitcoms, and a debate on stem-cell
research. On the news they said his favorite writer, Billy Lee, had just died
of a heroin overdose.
    Now he walks in the Black , said the voice in his
head. Careful, or you’ll join him.
    I don’t know what that means, Daniel thought.
    There was a taptaptap on the front door, so faint
that it might not have been there at all. A moment later he heard the door
leading from the hall to the stairwell creak shut on its ancient pneumatic
hinge.
    Daniel crept like a thief to the peephole. Nothing. He
listened again, this time with his ear pressed to the wood. Echo came out of
the bathroom and went to the bedroom as he unlocked the deadbolt. He eased the
door open until there was a solid three-inch gap to peer through. On the
welcome mat sat a small orange prescription bottle. Daniel knew he should just
close the door and pretend this wasn’t happening. Instead he took a deep
breath, leaned out, and grabbed the bottle.
    Good pills rattled inside and he stared at it in his hands,
as if the bottle was going to sprout legs and run. He stashed it in his pocket
just as Echo walked into the living room.
    “What are you doing?” she asked. Was it a simple question,
or an accusation?
    Was this erratic behavior? Daniel re-locked the
deadbolt. “I thought I heard someone knock.”
    “I didn’t hear anything.”
    He shrugged. She smiled at him and then gave him a hug.
    “Are we OK?” She looked up at him, her arms around his neck.
    “Of course.” Daniel kissed her and went into the kitchen,
wondering if the pills were the same. He switched the original bottle given to
him at the hospital pharmacy into his pocket and carried the new pills into the
living room with a glass of water. The labels were identical. He removed the
cap and peered at the microcosm of man-made tolerance. The hall-pills looked
the same as the others; he shook one out into his palm for closer examination.
Were they just a touch rounder? Maybe.
    You’re not really going to take that are you, the
voice in his head asked. Pills you found in the hall?
    They have my name on the bottle, Daniel argued, and realized
Echo was staring at him. He popped the pill and washed it down.
    Daniel saw her expression before it changed. It hadn’t been
a strange