Huckleberry Fiend Read Online Free PDF

said he’d prefer I turned into a frog.
    “Afraid I have to, buddy. Beverly Alexander’s dead.”
    He looked alarmed.
    “Murdered.”
    “Excuse me a minute.” He started to walk out of the room, and then apparently remembered something drummed into him by his mom in her pre-lesbian days. “Sit down, okay? Have a beer.”
    The beer seemed a fine idea, if it was the only alcoholic beverage he was offering; a belt of something stronger would have been even more to the point. But who knew where it was, so I made for the fridge. It held eight or ten premium imported brands, along with equally impressive selections of mustards and ice cream toppings. On nearby counters there were canisters of teas, and others of coffees. The kitchenware was Le Creuset. The gadgets were the best and the latest. Booker’s kitchen was a microcosm of his whole house— the finest of everything, and lots of it.
    I went back to the living room, where I could have spent hours looking at the famous art collection, or browsing the record library, which covered nearly a whole wall, with several shelves containing only compact discs. Need I mention that the audio equipment was state-of-the-art? The furniture was covered in leather, the surfaces were glass, the colors were black and white— the better, said the owner, to show off his art. Pretty opulent for a runty kid— a runty kid who was even now showing to the door the source of his interrupted afternoon delight, a tall and gorgeous drink of water in black leather skirt and three-colored hair. She and Booker proceeded to kiss for a good part of the afternoon. I was thinking of clearing my throat when I heard her whisper, “Tomorrow?”
    “I’ll call you,” said Booker, and the door snicked shut.
    “How do you do it?” I blurted.
    He looked puzzled. “How do I—? Oh, women. Easy. I work at it.”
    “Doesn’t everyone?”
    “Mcdonald, please. Begging your pardon, but I am a pro. Have I ever shown you my wardrobe? I know exactly what to wear to every joint on which night. I know what crowd is going to be where, and when they’re going to get tired of that and move on. I can smell a new joint before the ink’s dry on the lease, and I can tell you what kind of women it’s going to draw.”
    “Don’t you ever meet women at— you know— art exhibits or anything?”
    “What’s the point? If I brought someone nice here, she’d just think I was a dope dealer, like the rest of them do.”
    “You mean you can never have a meaningful relationship?”
    “I’m trying, Mcdonald, okay? Am I in analysis or not?” He spoke with such heat that I couldn’t help hearing the hurt underneath. I supposed being wealthy at twenty-six had its drawbacks, and I hoped I’d remember that next time I became envious of Booker and tempted to learn my way around a ’loid.
    “Sorry,” I said.
    “It’s okay. Tell me about Beverly. Is Isami okay?”
    “No worse than you’d be if you’d spent the afternoon with Howard Blick. I don’t know if she’s a suspect or not. I don’t know anything— I just wanted to tell you she’s dead. It happened last night,” I added, watching him carefully.
    He didn’t react at all. I hoped it had happened sometime between seven and ten, when Booker was with Sardis and me, but nothing in his expression told me he was thinking of that at all. “How’d she die?”
    “Don’t know yet. Except that she was murdered.”
    He was quiet a while. “I can’t get it out of my mind,” he said at last. “She must have been killed for the thing.”
    “The manuscript?”
    He nodded. “Maybe she was supposed to deliver it, and couldn’t, because I took it. Or maybe someone knew about it and tried to steal it. Only they couldn’t, once again because it wasn’t there. So they killed her, trying to make her talk.”
    “Hey, you shouldn’t think like that.” But my heart wasn’t in it. It was the way I was thinking.
    “Mcdonald, I’m responsible for that woman’s