Easter City Read Online Free PDF

white
collar—it was choking me. I gasped gulfs of heat. I grabbed the
door frame and stumbled out of the bathroom, slumping into a booth
after a hazy eternity’s trek across the bar.
    When I cooled off a little I opened my eyes
to see Joq sitting next to me. I set my head on the rotted oak. I
was staring at the bottom of a bottle of a glass bottle that read
Ponce De Leon Vodka. A huge granola bar lay beside it. I looked up
at Joq. His mouth was moving but…
    My ears popped.
    “—was under the counter, I swear! Wasn’t
‘ogging ‘em all for meself! Eat up, yeah?” he pushed the granola
bar toward me, then unwrapped it when my clumsy fingers couldn’t. I
ate the bar and felt a little better, if tired. At first I refused
the drink that Joq kept on pushing at me. I relented when my head
gave another throb. Only one.
    My head got heavy and soft by the third shot
and felt better than it had before. I half-listened to Joq babble
about some escort he’d hit on and his father and his brothers and
his life in the Hills and, before long, I fell asleep.
    There was a low pressure wine fountain on the
back of my lids and me and Joq, all dressed up. The auditorium—the
fountain—Julia—the sword—the fountain—the young man with a cane and
a smoking gun. Julia dead at my feet. There were other images too
and, as they flashed, I tried to remember them. An escort—a bloody
poker slipping from my hand—two dead men—the devil kid glaring at
me from his father’s side. The black limousine peeling off.
    I opened my eyes. Friday was sitting on my
chest.
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     

CHAPTER 5

      I washed a pill down
with enough water to make my gut swell and rested a little more. By
midday the elephant stood and trudged off to find some other drunk
head to sit on. I squinted out the window. Sun, on Main Street... Maybe I died, falling down that hill
with Joq.
      Joq stirred, wiped the crust from his
eyes and sat up yawning. When he saw the grinning rays, he did a
dramatic double take and looked at me and pointed out the
window.
      “Fortune’s smiling on us Nipple!”
      I shook my head. “You won’t be saying
that when… Anyway, shouldn’t we head up to La Rouge?
      Joq pointed at the
sun. “We ‘ave at least ‘til sundown before the show! It starts at…” he flipped over
the flyer, read the front again and flipped it over. He glanced at
me. When I blinked at the flyer, the likes of which had no show
time on it, Joq begun to rummage in his empty pockets. He pulled
out a clenched fist and ducked under the table murmuring, “Ah, yes,
‘ere it is! Wrote down everyfing on this scrap. You didn’t think
Joq would forget the most important fing, did ya? No ser, not me.
‘Thoughtful Joq’ is what they call me! So, er, this piece o’ paper…
in me ‘and reads like this… as follows…. It reads the time, which
is written on this piece o’ paper in me ‘and…”
      He glanced up to check if I was buying
his bullshit. I guess the look on my face spoke volumes. Joq
frowned, hung his head and pulled his hand out of the cookie
jar.
      I frowned. “You don’t know when it
starts? You mugged two kids and stole a car but you didn’t find out
the time? The show could be going on right now.”
      “Well… I mean! ‘int no show’s goin’ on
at midday, Nipple! We just ‘ave to wait a li’l!”
      “We’re going now .”
      “We’ll be seen in daylight! An’ we’ll
‘ave to wait in the cold, in that morbid gutter o’ yours! Not that
it ‘int the most won’erfullest, magicalest gutter o’ all!” He
added.
      “We go now .”
     
“Ni -pple !”
      I sighed. “It happens that I know the
magic show is going to take place at night.”
      Joq’s ears pricked up.
      “ But , we’ll go early to scope things
out. And we won’t have to ‘hide in the gutter’. We don’t look much
like beggar kids now.”
      “But the cold !” Joq stuck