Roast Mortem Read Online Free PDF

glassy-eyed. “I helped a buddy install his exhibit at the Socrates Sculpture Park; then I hung at the Bohemian Hall Beer Garden with a bunch of aspiring Jasper Johns.”
    I almost laughed. Not so long ago someone as terminally hip as Dante Silva wouldn’t have been caught dead at an outer-borough beer hall. But that was before the Great Recession completely flipped New York’s social scene. These days, slick neon bars with velvet ropes were out. Keggers and kielbasa were in.
    Then again, every few years I’d notice my collegiate coffeehouse customers celebrating some kind of music, clothing, food, or art form that had become so outdated and square it went all the way around the wheel to come up hip again: bowling, bacon, sliders, cupcakes, hip-hugger jeans, Tom Jones, Neil Diamond . . . I dreaded the day preground coffee in a can made a comeback.
    â€œSo where’s this roaster?” Dante asked.
    â€œLet me lock this door and I’ll show you.”
    â€œWhoa, boss,” Dante murmured.
    He’d stopped in the middle of the room to stare at Enzo’s mural. I walked up to join him. “What do you think?”
    â€œFreakin’ awesome.”
    â€œThat’s what I thought.”
    In a phrase, looking at Enzo’s mural was like taking a visual journey through the movements of modern art. The narrative began with impressionism, moved to expressionism, fauvism, cubism, Dadaism, surrealism, and abstract expressionism. Layered in among it all were touches of Iberian art, as well as Japonism and primitivism—all of which influenced twentieth-century artistic developments.
    Paul Gauguin’s fascination with Polynesian culture and Oceanic art was represented, as well as Parisian fascination with African fetish sculptures. The postmodern movement was explored, with its blurring of high and low cultural lines; the vibrant pop images of spoof and irony were also here, along with the (often misunderstood) reframing of common objects by those visual poets who helped us see with new eyes our cans of soup and boxes of Brillo pads.
    Enzo’s work served it all up in one continuous masterpiece that felt (like Pollack’s best) as if it would go on and on, and yet, this fresco was more than a succession of finely wrought forgeries. He’d stirred the ingredients into an epic stew of modernism, simmering iconic ideas to form a wholly new dish, and while some areas of the mural were no more than well-executed servings of familiar flavors, other sections displayed expressions of color, texture, and imagery that I’d never seen before.
    â€œI’ve got to get some snaps of this.”
    â€œTake your time.”
    I turned on the lights and Dante clicked away, capturing every foot of the expansive wall art. Then I returned to secure the front door. Unfortunately, the lock started giving me real agita. I jiggled the key several times. No luck. I half opened the door and knelt down to see if I could fix the thing.
    â€œYou need help, boss?” Dante turned, took a few steps toward me.
    That’s when the bomb went off.

THREE
    FIRST came the sound, a monumental whoosh followed by a hissing roar. Then the white-hot concussion rippled through the air, the caffè’s front window exploded outward and the blast washed over me.
    My eyes were at keyhole level while I worked the stupid, stubborn lock, and the force of the firebomb knocked me right through the doorway.
    Sprawled on my back on the debris-strewn sidewalk, I turned my head, stared at the carpet of glass shards. Blood started pumping through my system so fast I could barely recognize voices yelling, a car horn beeping. I was unhurt. Small scratches maybe, a few bruises, a little bleeding— big deal— I was okay otherwise, and I focused on throwing off the shock.
    Smoke rolled out of the caffè, the noxious fog billowing upward in a succession of black, misshapen balloons. Wheezing and coughing, I got