Curtains Read Online Free PDF Page B

Have you
done it lately?"
    "Well, now that you mention it, I was just
with a gentleman who knows how to show a lady a good time. He even
did the driving. It's funny how if you walk down certain streets at
night, guys just pull over and ask if you want a ride. They'll even
try to give you money. But, oh my, the things they ask you to
do."
    "What did this one want?" I was excited and
scared at the same time. Dietz flicked his eyes from the tech to
his wristwatch, then to my sweaty face.
    "You know I don't talk dirty over the phone,
Mickey. That would be unladylike. Let's just say we wound up on a
dead-end road. I could feel the pounding of his cheap heart beneath
his polyester suit. He said I could do it any way I wanted. The way
I wanted was to put it right between his meaty chins and scatter
his pea-sized brain all over his nice, clean upholstery."
    "Way to go, girl," I said. The switchboard
was clogged with callers wanting to talk to Night Owl. There was no
time to punch someone in. The tech started nodding down the
seconds, his bony head wobbling like a frog on a wire, and I felt
dread squeeze my throat.
    "Mickey, nobody knows how to treat a lady
anymore, except you. Thanks for keeping me going when the rest of
the world is going crazy. If only every man were like you--"
    I suddenly felt sick.
    "Hang up, there's a police trace!" I screamed
into my mic, covering it with saliva. I heard a click on the
monitors. It was the sound of my world coming to an end, in a
stream of dead air instead of the guitar feedback I'd always
imagined.
    Dietz rushed at me, anger twisting his face
into a mask. The tech threw his scrawny arms up in surrender. I
leaned back in my swivel chair and stared at the zeroed-out volume
meters. "Good-bye, Night Owl," I said, to no one in particular.
    Everything moved in slow motion after that.
Dietz read me my rights and was about to snap on the cuffs, but in
my condition, I was about as dangerous as a goldfish. Once he
regained his composure, he was kind enough to let me run the board
until another jock showed up. They couldn't reach Pudge, but the GM
sent in the pimply intern. I signed off with The Who's "Song is
Over."
     
    I've got a battery of lawyers from the
American Civil Liberties Union, and they tell me my case will be
tied up for years, years I probably don't have. Night Owl left a
message on my answering machine at home.
    "Mickey, you said you'd never do me wrong,
but you're just like all the rest." Sadness had replaced the fire
in her voice, and her words twisted in my chest like a corkscrew.
"All the joy's gone, but at least I still have my work. I'll see
you around. And now I think I'm supposed to say, 'Don't call me,
I'll call you.'"
    I kept my deejay job. There was no one to
fire me. It seems Pudge was found dead in his car. Ballistics tests
match those of the other Night Owl murders. The GM decided I have
just enough notoriety left to draw a few listeners. They've removed
the interface from the studio, and all we have is a request
line.
    So now I sit and wait. I heard there's been a
string of shootings over in Council Bluffs , with a familiar M.O.,
and it's not a long drive to get here. The request line blinks, as
lonely as the last morning star. Wayne is on the other end.
    "Looks like it's just you and me," I say.
    "Rock on, dude."
    I do.
    ###
     
     
    HOW TO BUILD YOUR OWN COFFIN
     
    Blood and nails, that's all you need.
    Larry ran his hand over the wood. Smooth as a
baby's ass and a mother's tit. He'd planed the cherry himself, by
hand, not with one of those machines. Sure, he'd caught a few
splinters, but that was the blood part of this business.
    And what were a few calluses? Skin turned to
dust just as surely as brain and bone did. And your heart probably
crumbled faster than any of it. The meat didn't matter. What
mattered was how you walked off the stage. That's what they
remembered. And Larry McMasters was going to go out in style.
    He dipped his brush into the shellac and
lifted