Nightbird Read Online Free PDF Page B

and bolo ties.
    “So what’s the bottom line here, Danny? Was she doing drugs or not? Toxicology will eventually settle the issue, but it might
     take a while.”
    “Let me put it like this: I went with her for almost a year, and we were very close. Very, very close. I’d know if she was
     doing drugs, believe me.”
    “Then why was she so upset about the test?”
    “Because Winters had her trapped. Once the word got around, no matter what the outcome, her reputation on Broadway would be
     damaged. People would remember the fact she was tested, not the results.”
    “You buy that?”
    “Yeah. Broadway is a small town.”
    “What kind of shape was she in when she left the bar last night?”
    “She had a buzz going,” Danny said. “A minor buzz.”
    “Slurring her words, according to the bartender. Wobbly on her feet, according to the doorman. After only three drinks.”
    “She only weighed about one oh five. It doesn’t take many drinks at one oh five.”
    “But she was drunk, right?”
    “Maybe she didn’t eat; I don’t know.”
    “See, now that bothers me,” Gregory said, looking up from a stack of Broadway show T-shirts. “She’s someone you care for,
     and you admit she had half a load on. Yet you didn’t even offer to see her safely home?”
    “See her safely home? What century are you from? For your information, I
did
ask her if she wanted me to take her home. She said no. End of story.”
    “Number eight,” Joe Gregory said, and sneezed into a camisole.
    A nthony Ryan stood on the terrace, looking down onto Times Square and wondering what it would be like to fall upside down in
     the wind, your last glimpses of life confined to fleeting glances into the windows of the neighbors below… seventeen sad scenes…
     a flickering stack of Hopper paintings, subtly hinting that everyone was lonely and desperate, the rest of us only one disappointment
     away from going off a terrace ourselves.
    A few floors below, a large-winged bird floated in the murky heat. It was odd watching a bird from above. A hawk, maybe. Ryan
     had read there were hawks in the city. He didn’t know anything about birds. But he did know about his son, who had flown through
     the canyons of immense western states on nylon wings that failed. He couldn’t stop seeing his son falling through space, the
     sound of collision suddenly so catastrophic that the mere thought sucked the breath from him. He clutched the railing as his
     legs buckled and his knees banged against the opaque panel.
    Ryan had always been terrified of heights, but with the death of his son all fear of death evaporated. What difference did
     it make?
Death will come, sure as shit it will, but we’ll all be together again. How bad is that?
He’d lost all patience for people who complained about niggling crap. At night he’d sit in front of the TV and watch people
     complaining about taxes, traffic, politics, prices, about every stupid thing. How shallow were the lives of these people to
     get worked up over such inconsequential bullshit. Try losing a child. See what’s important then.
    The hawk flew closer. Ryan spoke his son’s name aloud, and the hawk floated toward him. Anthony Ryan was angry with himself
     for not having been a better father. But he was comforted by the thought that his son was no longer falling.
    D id you know Trey Winters owns this apartment?” Gregory said.
    “I figured he did,” Danny said. “A lot of the production companies own apartments. They use them to lure big-time stars. It’s
     a major perk, especially in New York.”
    “But Gillian’s small potatoes in this show. Doesn’t a major perk like this apartment sound a little generous to you?”
    “I know exactly what you’re driving at,” Danny said. “And I couldn’t agree with you more.”
    “Did she actually say they were having an affair?”
    “Not in so many words. But the point I got was that this trumped-up drug charge was Winters’s way of insulating