Norwood Read Online Free PDF

down here because of freight costs and other variables. Take a Mercedes now, it will cost you a good two hundred dollars more down here. It all has to do with the market. You won’t be deadheading back, don’t worry about that.”
    â€œI hope these are not stolen cars.”
    Grady looked at Norwood for a long moment. “I don’t know whether you meant that seriously or not. We are legitimate businessmen, Norwood. We are in the public eye. We hold a position of trust in the community. We could hardly afford to jeopardize that position by playing around with hot cars. I think you spoke before you thought. No, we welcome legal scrutiny of all our affairs at all times.”
    â€œI don’t want to get in any trouble.”
    â€œNaturally not. One way to avoid it would be not to repeat your highly actionable remark about hot cars.”
    â€œI do need to see somebody in New York.”
    Grady put on his glasses and consulted a billfold calendar by the light of his twenty-four-tube radio. “Hmmm. How does a next Sunday morning departure sound to you?”
    â€œThat’s pretty quick.”
    Grady shrugged.
    â€œI don’t know,” said Norwood. “I’d have to think about it. I’d have to talk to my sister about it.”
    â€œBy all means, talk to your sister. Discuss it with her. What is her name?”
    â€œVernell.”
    â€œWhat a lovely name,” said Grady. He reached in the back seat and fumbled around in a big pasteboard box and brought forth a styrene comb and brush set and a little bottle of perfume with a blue bow on it. “Give this to Vernell with my warmest regards.” He nodded toward the back seat. “We had a lot of honorable mention prizes left over in the last Nipper contest.”
    â€œThis is mighty nice of you.”
    Grady waved it off. “It’s nothing. Now. My phone number’s on this card. Feel free to call me at any time, collect. I would appreciate it if you called on this matter by Thursday noon.”
    The ice in the milk shake carton was now soupy but they had another short drink anyway. When Norwood opened the door to leave, Grady had an afterthought. “Wait a minute,” he said. “Let me see your watch.” Norwood showed it to him. Grady studied it critically through the reading part of his glasses, under the radio light. He tapped the crystal with a long, dense, yellow fingernail. “With all respect to you, that’s a piece of junk.” Then he slipped his own watch off, a flat shiny one with a black face and gold pips instead of numbers, and gave it to Norwood. “I don’t want you to go home tonight till you have a good timepiece on your wrist. You can just put that other one away in your drawer somewhere. Sell it to a nigger if you can.... No, don’t say a word. I want you to have it. I get these at well below cost.”
    â€œThis is mighty nice of you, Mr. Fring.”
    â€œMr. Fring nothing. Call me Grady.”
    Norwood drove home and thought about how he would put it to Clyde about taking off from the station. Clyde would ask five hundred questions. Vernell and Bill Bird would be a problem too. They would gnaw on it for days like two puppies with a rubber bone. Norwood had a long reflective bath. He put some more shaving cream on his thumb. While he was combing his hair he took up an oblique pose in front of the mirror and gave himself a lazy smile, like some smirking C & W star coming up out of the lower right-hand corner of an 8 by 10 glossy.
    He played some records for a while in his sleeping porch bedroom and imagined himself having a smoke backstage with Lefty Frizzell: “Hey Norwood, you got a light?” His green pinstripe Nipper trousers were hanging on the back of a chair, with Grady’s insurance tract sticking up out of a hip pocket. Norwood got up from bed in his shorts and took the tract into the front bedroom. He turned on the light, giving the