Night Work Read Online Free PDF

the haunted tower, looking into another woman’s face.
    I kissed her, the moment feeling like an out-of-body experience. Me looking down at the two of us from the tower, watching the impossible happen. The clock went past midnight without making a sound. We walked some more, past the stores on Wall Street and then past the county courthouse.
    “You must spend a lot of time in there,” she said.
    “Once in a while,” I said. The place was dark and quiet now. Without the sign you’d have no idea what went on inside. “Mostly I’m over at the Family Court. That’s on Lucas Avenue.”
    “All kids …”
    “That’s my specialty,” I said. “I can relate tosixteen-year-olds who think they know everything. Who think they’re tough guys. I was one myself, right here in this same town.”
    “You grew up here?”
    “Lived my whole life in Kingston.”
    “And you were once a knucklehead? That was your word for them, right?”
    “I was most definitely a knucklehead, yes. Nothing major, mind you. No multiple homicides. Let’s just say I was involved in a number of questionable episodes.”
    “Questionable episodes, eh? I like that.”
    “Good,” I said. “And … I hope you had a decent time tonight.”
    “Does that mean it’s ending now?”
    I cleared my throat. If there was something smooth to say to that, it wasn’t coming to me.
    “What if I told you,” she said, “that as soon as I saw you I knew I’d be taking you home with me tonight?”
    “I’d say that everything I told you at dinner probably made you change your mind.”
    “Well, no … but maybe I’d understand now if you didn’t want to come inside.” She stopped walking, and it took me a moment to figure out why.
    “This is your place?” I said. It was one of the old stone houses, maybe six blocks away from the restaurant.
    “Just the upstairs. The owner rents it out.”
    “Sort of like my deal. Only you’ve got an actual house. Do you have a piano up there?”
    “Are you kidding? You should see the stairs.”
    “Too bad.”
    “I do have a keyboard, though. You want me to play you something?”
    I looked at the upstairs window, as if I’d find the right answer written on the glass. “Maybe one song.”
    Instead of opening the front door, she took me by the hand and led me into the darkness. I nearly killed myself only once, tripping on a garden hose. At the back of the house there was an iron spiral staircase leading up to a balcony.
    “Not exactly handicap accessible, is it …” I said.
    “I know, it’s kind of strange. But wait till you see this place.”
    She unlocked the door and led me inside. I had to duck to get through the doorway. She turned on a couple of lamps, but the room seemed to absorb the light. There was dark wood on all of the walls, dark wood on the floor, dark wood on the ceiling. I bumped my head on one of the thick beams.
    “Sorry,” she said. “I don’t think they had people as tall as you back when they built this place.”
    “It probably made it easier to heat.” I went over to the old fireplace. The stones had been blackened from at least two hundred years of smoke.
    “You want something to drink? Some coffee or something?”
    “No, I’m good. Thanks.”
    On the opposite wall there was a workbench setup, with lots of little drawers and a dozen tools I couldn’t have named to save my life.
    “Is this your jewelry stuff?”
    “Yeah, some of it,” she said from the kitchen. “The rest is in storage.”
    “What’s this wedge thing?” I said. It was clamped to the bench and notched with a V.
    “That’s a bench pin.”
    “And this thing that looks like a dentist’s drill?”
    “That’s a flex shaft.”
    All this stuff surrounding me. Her whole life in this dark little room and me standing right in the middle of it. This woman I had just met a few hours ago.
    She came back from the kitchen. She looked a little nervous now, with her arms folded across her chest. “What do you want me