How It Ended: New and Collected Stories Read Online Free PDF Page B

standing on the sidewalk, waiting for someone. The street was entirely deserted, though it was Park Avenue. Not another soul on the sidewalk, not a car on the street. A black limousine appeared several blocks down, cruising toward her slowly, finally pulling up and stopping by the curb in front of her. The glass was smoked; she couldn't see inside the car. The back window slipped down; a man's hand emerged from the open window, holding out a pack of cigarettes. She looked up and down the street, then climbed into the limo. She couldn't make out the figure beside her in the backseat, but as the car pulled away from the curb, she saw Russell looking down from a window in an apartment building high above the street.
    In the morning she didn't mention the dream. Getting Russell's attention had been difficult lately anyway.
    That week was the first real scorcher of the summer; the humidity brimmed to the verge of rain, without breaking. Walking to the subway the next morning, Corrine could feel her damp blouse sticking to her shoulder blades. In the station the men in yellow ties looked wilted, the women in their tailored suits defensive, as if they sensed that on days like this the subterranean violence of the city was likely to boil to the surface. She had forgotten to buy a paper, and as her gaze wandered idly around the platform, she suddenly met the eyes of a ragged man staring back at her with malevolent intensity. She turned away, staggered by that look, her mind unreeling images of carnage: muzzle flash, neon blood, filthy hands at her throat, boldface headlines. As the train rattled in, she couldn't help looking again; this time she saw a blank face and lusterless, unfocused eyes behind a tangle of matted hair.
    A little after ten, Duane Jones stuck his head into her office. “Still being virtuous?”
    She motioned him in and whispered, “Close the door.”
    He raised his eyebrows and pulled the door closed.
    “Let me have a couple of drags.”
    “All this secrecy for a couple of drags?”
    “Just light it, will you?”
    He shook a Merit out of his pack and held it out to her.
    “No, you light it.”
    Duane was enjoying this. He fired the cigarette with his lighter and held it out to her. “The idea being that if I light it, you won't have actually smoked a cigarette?”
    “Humor me.” She took the cigarette and inhaled deeply, held the smoke in her lungs. “Funny, it doesn't taste like I thought it would.”
    “You look great with a cigarette.”
    She took another, strictly experimental drag. This was more like what she had anticipated, a reunion clinch with a former lover. But she wasn't going to hop into bed. She just wanted to remind herself that she could live without this one passion. Corrine held the cigarette out to him, fortified with a new resolve. “Take it.”
    “I've got more.”
    “Take it.”
    “Okay.” Duane noted the faint peach impression of Corrine's lips on the filter. He took a drag.
    Corrine was sorting papers on her desk, suddenly all business. “I'm going to be here till midnight if I don't get moving,” she said.
    “You know where to find me,” Duane said as he left.
    The stock market was getting hot; Corrine was working ten- and twelve-hour days. With the advent of Tracey, Russell's workload was considerably lighter, but because of Corrine's job, they couldn't get out of the city much. At first he enjoyed being able to meet friends for drinks, watch TV or read at home without interruption, though as the summer wore on, he began to resent her scrupulous fidelity to her job. One hot night when she arrived home after midnight, he made insinuations, mentioning Duane Jones.
    At the office he read the Times front to back before settling into his official chores, and sometimes he composed fake guide entries for his own amusement. One morning, as the temperature climbed toward ninety and the air conditioning became less and less a source of relief, he was writing one of these when