Free Fall in Crimson Read Online Free PDF Page B

I had a dozen customers at the bar, and I was quite busy. I had no chance to notice him, really, to guess at his state of mind. That's what they asked. Was he nervous? Was he elated? I just couldn't help them at all. From his manner I judged him to be a businessman of some importance, used to good service. He spoke to no one else, and no one joined him. They questioned his waitress and the people at the desk and the girl at the newsstand. I don't think they learned anything useful. At least they've never arrested anyone."
    "It's puzzling," I said. "Why would a man pull into a rest stop on the turnpike after he had been driving only six miles?"
    "Car trouble?" the bartender said.
    "He had a new Lincoln Continental with just over two thousand miles on it," Meyer said.
    "Perhaps he felt unwell," the bartender said. "He didn't look like a really healthy person. His color was bad."
    Three new customers arrived, laughing and hearty, dressed like Dallas businessmen, ranch hats and stitched boots. Juice moguls, maybe. They called the bartender Harry, and he greeted them by name. Two bourbons and a scotch.
    We had a second drink and then went to the dining room for better than adequate steaks, green salad, and baked potatoes, served efficiently by a glum heavy woman who knew nothing about anybody who'd been a customer over a year ago, because she had not been there a year.
    Back at the motel, Meyer went to bed with a book called Contrary Investment Strategy. I told him to be sure to let me know how it came out. I tried to think about Esterland's misfortune, but my mind kept veering into trivia, to a memory of the fine matte finish on the slender Renzetti legs, and the tiny beads of sweat along her forehead at the dark hairline as she sat in silhouette against the white glare of beach. Meyer, in bright yellow pajamas, frowned into his strategy book.
    I slipped away into nightmare. I was running after a comedy airplane. Gretel was the pilot, very dashing in her Red Baron helmet, goggles, white silk scarf, white smile as she turned to look back at me. The little biplane bounded over the lumps in the, broad pasture. I was trying to warn her. If she took off, she would fly into the trees. She couldn't hear me because of the noise of the engine. She thought I was making jokes, chasing her. I could not catch her. The engine sound grew louder and the tail skid lifted and she took off toward the pines.
    As I ran, still yelling, I saw her tilt the plane to try to slide through a gap in the trees, saw the wings come off, heard the long grinding, sliding, clattering crash into the stones. I climbed down the slope. The whole, gully was cluttered with large pieces of airplane, but strangely old, stained by time and weather, grass growing up through rents in the aluminum. I couldn't understand. I kept hunting for her. I flipped over what seemed to be a small piece of wing, big as the top of a card table, and there was a skull in the skull-sized stones; helmet in place, the goggle lenses starred by old fractures, a bundle of soiled gray silk bunched under the bones of the jaw.
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    Meyer shook me out of it, and I came up gasping, sweat-soaked.
    "Okay?" he asked.
    "Thanks."
    "A lot of moaning and twitching going on."
    I wiped my face on a corner of the sheet. "Gretel again. She doesn't seem to want to stay dead."
    He went back over to his bed and covered himself and picked up his book. He looked over at me, thoughtful and concerned.
    "How is the book coming?" I asked.
    "The bad guys are winning, I think."
    "Sometimes they do. Sometimes you can't tell the bad guys unless you buy a program at the door." And when my heart slowed back to normal, I was able to go back to sleep.
    At breakfast Meyer said, "I'd hoped to be back by early evening. In fact I would very much like to be back."
    It took me a few moments to understand the urgency. Then I remembered that Aggie Sloane was due in on her big Trumpy again, called the Byline. Aggie, an ex-news hen