Night and Day Read Online Free PDF Page B

you’re only a minute late meeting Rick.
    He’s waiting by the front door of the club, a straw fedora on his head and another in his hand. He tosses it to you and you put it on. “Ready?” he says.
    “Yes. Thank you. For the clothes and things. And the bed. And….”
    He laughs and opens the door. “Consider it—”
    “An investment,” you finish for him. “Yes. But I’m still grateful.”
    There’s a car waiting at the curb, a beautiful golden Lincoln Model K, with its low, sweeping lines. The interior is white leather, and it occurs to you that the Bellevues must have their fingers in more pots than just a little supper club that caters to oddball types. And the people you met last night were oddballs, all right, not just in their social or racial or physical characteristics, but something much deeper, much less clear. You’re not quite sure what it is, but you push it to the back of your skull to cogitate on later, when you have the inclination.
    For now, you want to enjoy this moment, the ride in a sleek high-powered car beside a sleek high-powered man, on a cool, clear morning with empty streets. You shoot him a quick sidelong look and are oddly comforted to see that his hair, while definitely brown, is not electric with copper sparks and no longer than it was last night.
    “It’s not far, and at this hour, before the traffic, it should only take about twenty minutes. If you’re desperate, there’s a Thermos flask full of coffee under the seat. I made it earlier. But that’s the extent of my cooking ability.”
    “I can wait,” you say.
    The car is open, so you both are quiet, silenced by the wind of your passing as he speeds through the city streets. It is only a matter of minutes before you have left the city behind and are tooling along rougher country roads. There aren’t any mountains within a hundred miles of the city, but the river cuts through bluffs to the west, so the road climbs in switchbacks up to the higher ground. You arrive at your destination, a small restaurant on top of the bluff, and Rick pulls into the gravel lot. The sign says Delphie’s. As you climb out of the car, the front door opens, and a small woman comes running out to leap into Rick’s arms. He laughs and hugs her. She plants a loud kiss on his cheek before dropping to her feet in the gravel and giving him a good, solid punch to the upper arm. “Four weeks!” she yells at him. “Four weeks !”
    “I’ve been busy,” he says weakly. “She’s been good?”
    “She’s fine,” the woman says, and then turns to you. “Hullo. I’m Delphie. You’re…?”
    “Nate Petroff,” Rick says. “Our new headliner.”
    She doesn’t say “Never heard of you,” but the phrase is loud in her skeptical look. But she shakes your hand anyway. “Meetcha,” she says, then to Rick, “Come on in. You can visit her while I’m fixin’ up your breakfast. Coffee’s ready, on the sideboard.”
    The restaurant is tiny but clean, and the coffee is hot and black and perfect. Rick takes the cup you pour him and leads the way through a door at the back and up a short path to an even tinier cottage. He raps on the door once and then pushes it open.
    The little living room is redolent with the sweet smoke of marijuana, but it’s not a jazz musician or flapper holding the joint. It’s a little old lady in a rocking chair, her eyes vague and filmy. “Hey, Auntie,” Rick says softly.
    “Don’t you call me ‘Auntie,’ boy,” the woman says. “When you don’t hardly come to see me no more.”
    “I’m sorry, Auntie. I brought you a present.” Rick reaches into his jacket pocket and takes out a brown-paper-wrapped package.
    “Better be the weed,” “Auntie” says.
    Rick laughs. “Of course.”
    “I suppose you want me to look at him?”
    “If you like.” Rick is noncommittal, but he glances at me.
    The woman is crotchety, but little and frail. She doesn’t scare you until you sit on the hassock in front of her