Roadmarks Read Online Free PDF

asked.
    The smoke spiraled above her head.
    "Doing what?"
    "Doing nothing," he said. "Wasting your time here when you could be looking."
    "Since you ask," she said, taking another drink, "I will tell you. I have been up and down that damned Road from the Neolithic to C Thirty. I have followed every sideroad, footpath and rabbit run along the way. I am known in a thousand lands by different names. Yet in none of them have I found what I sought, what we seek."
    "You have never been close? You have never felt the presence?"
    She shuddered.
    "I have felt presences — some of them very similar, some of them quite unforgettable — none of them right. No. I can only conclude that the place I once sought no longer exists."
    "Everything exists somewhere."
    "Then you can't get there from here."
    "I can't believe that."
    "Then tell me this: is it worth it? Is it worth wasting your life looking when you can have your choice of times and places, go anywhere, do anything you want?"
    "Like turning tricks and drinking yourself unconscious? Like setting fire to the bed?"
    She blew a smoke ring.
    "I have been doing nothing — as you said — for almost a year. It gets easier every day. And the results are the same. I have used up my energies. I am by nature quite indolent. It is pleasant to stop, to resign a fruitless enterprise. Why don't you join me? You have nothing to show for all your efforts. We could at least console one another."
    "It is not my nature," he said, just as servants arrived with new bed, bedding and bottle.
    They smoked in silence and watched the men work. When they had gone, she said, "Having a lot of money and sleeping much of the time are the best things in life."
    "I am also interested in the things in between," he said.
    "And what has it gotten you?" she asked, standing. "Marked for death, that's all."
    She moved to the window and looked out.
    "What do you mean?" he finally asked.
    "Nothing."
    "It sounded like something to me. Come on, what did you see?"
    "I didn't say I saw anything." She turned toward him. "We've got a new bed. Let's try it."
    "Don't try to distract me. I know you've got more of the Sight than I have. Let's have it."
    She leaned back against the sill and took a long drink.
    "And get away from that window. You might fall out."
    "Always the big brother," she said, but she moved away and went to sit on the bed.
    She placed the bottle on the floor and began drawing on her cigar, producing great clouds of smoke into which her gaze wandered.
    "Seeing . . . " she said, then lapsed into silence.
    "Seeing," Red repeated.
    "You move in a fog. It thickens as you head toward death. And you desire it! I saw ten dark birds pursue you," she said, her voice dropping to a lower register, "and now there are nine . . . "
    "Black decade!" he whispered. Then, "Who called it?"
    "Big," she said. "A big, heavy man . . .  And a poet . . .  Yes, he is a poet. Why, of course!"
    "Chadwick."
    "Fat Chadwick," she agreed.
    She blew the smoke away and reached for the bottle.
    "Why, when and how?" Red asked.
    "What do you want for one lousy vision? That's it."
    "Chadwick," he repeated, then drained his goblet. "It does make a sort of sense. Many men have had the motive, but few others have the means." Then, "Tony must have known something," he decided. "So he's gotten to them, too . . .  That means I can't count on anything from the cops. But . . .  Who can? It's official, then."
    He rose, retrieved the bottle and poured some more wine into the goblet.
    "What are you going to do?" she asked.
    He took a sip.
    "Keep going," he said.
    She nodded.
    "All right. I'll go with you. You'll need my help."
    "Nope. Not now. Thanks."
    She picked up the bottle and threw it out the window. Her green eyes flashed.
    "Don't be noble. I'm still one of the toughest things you ever met. You know I can help you."
    "Any other time, and you know how happy I'd be. Not when a black decade's been declared, though. Hell, one of us has to live, if only