Death Will Have Your Eyes Read Online Free PDF Page B

of her skin. And Trudy Mayfield’s name was just that: a name. I had no image of her face, no further memories of her sitting beside me in a classroom or over sloppy joes in the school cafeteria.
    Shortly after these realizations, I put the journal away. Best not to think about it, I told myself. I had a present, a life that gradually was taking on form, and that was what was important. Not the past, not history, not the stumbles and snags of a faulty memory.
    I go into the bathroom, tear the weightless plastic cup out of its paper cocoon, fill it from the tap, and drink. When I come back, the couple (threesome?) next door has again taken up the challenge.
    The second envelope contains a copy of the police report on the death of one Raymond Hicks, discovered by his common-law wife early that morning in their home on Colorado. The only mark on Mr. Hicks was a small incision beneath his nipple by way of which, with some flexible knifelike object and what the ME called “astonishing surgical skill,” the ventricles of his heart had been pared away like quarters of an apple.
    Rain streams on the window. Momentarily I feel like some ancient aquatic being, sequestered from evolution’s progress in the depths of its cave and forgotten. When a truck’s lights break suddenly against the rain there, I’m startled.
    Raymond Hicks was the name Howard the Horse had given me back in Memphis.

8
    It’s good to see you.
    â€œHow long…?”
    Three years.
    â€œWhat happened?”
    Beats me. Woke up one day and turned over to say good morning to whoever was there and I couldn’t. Now I write on this blackboard, like some kid. Nothing wrong physically, the doctors say. Hell, Dave, I’m sixty-two: there’s a lot wrong physically .
    â€œSo at this advanced age you’ve become a writer.”
    Ha. It ain’t funny, I guess. But then if it ain’t funny, what the hell is it?
    â€œLife.”
    Yeah, life. Joke without a punch line. So how you been?
    â€œGood, Blaise. It was rough at first.”
    Letting go, you mean.
    â€œYes.”
    It was hard taking hold at first, too. You forget?
    â€œNo, I haven’t forgotten. Anything. Including the fact that I wouldn’t be here now, probably wouldn’t have returned from my second assignment and certainly not from my tenth, if it hadn’t been for you.”
    So you’re welcome. You have someone to tell good morning?
    â€œYes. Her name’s Gabrielle.”
    Good. That’s important. You never did before. Maybe someday I’ll get a chance to meet her. You can take us both to dinner.
    â€œI’d like that.”
    You’d like it a lot more after a few years of the oatmeal soup here.
    â€œI hope you’re kidding.”
    With croutons. Just a guess, of course. Can’t tell a thing by looking at it, even less from tasting it. You ever get around to reading that Frenchman I told you about?
    â€œCendrars—your namesake. Some of it. What I could find in translation. Amazing stuff.”
    Amazing life. What are you doing these days?
    â€œI’m an artist, Blaise.”
    Always were. Saw it in you from the first. Told Johnsson that.
    â€œA different kind of artist.”
    Different, huh? Everybody’s hard behind change these days. Like there’s always been something wrong with us and we just noticed it so now we’re going to do something about it. People and things all changing so fast you can’t hold on to any of them anymore.
    â€œI never could.”
    Yeah. I guess maybe none of us could.
    â€œAre you doing okay?”
    I’m not doing at all—that’s the problem. But yeah, I have what I need. Johnsson and the others, they see to that. He bring you in because of Luc?
    â€œYes, sir.”
    Thought he would. You still that kind of artist too?
    â€œYou mean, am I going to pull Luc down for him?”
    It wouldn’t be for him.
    â€œShould I?”
    You