Suspended In Dusk Read Online Free PDF Page A

losing the last of its second-hand daylight, those dregs of gold it clung to like a miser. I watched those girls, and imagined the sound of their heels on the sidewalk, the smells of their bodies… the taste of their sweat. I was sweaty. I stank like a butcher and, whether I trusted him or not, Antoine was right. I did want to get out of Paris, and out of this sick, festering heat.
    “How far into the country are you going?” I asked, seeking out Antoine’s reflection in the mirror’s fractured gaze. “I can’t take time off work.”
    “Bullshit, Michele!” He laughed companionably at me. “That old fuck you work for at the warehouse? He’s so ancient he’s probably too blind to know whether you’re there or not. Get someone to cover for you, mec ! Or does he watch you so closely, eh? Staring at your ass all day, just waiting for a bite?”
    Antoine’s elbow dug into my ribs, and I winced.
    “ Va t’faire! ”
    He grinned all the wider and, despite every sensible thought I had left in my head, I said, “Well, maybe I could take a day.”
    “That’s the spirit, Michele!” Antoine beamed. “It’s only as far as Nantes. A bit farther, perhaps. A nice little gîte, belongs to the father of a friend of mine. Tres bon chic, bon genre . You know the type.”
    I nodded slowly. I did. Yuppies with cellular phones and gold watches. Who knew what they did with their spare time. I didn’t ask why Antoine needed someone to drive him to Nantes. Not right away, at least. He bought me another beer, and asked about my girl, and agreed with me when I called her a bitch.
    “There’s a lot of pussy in Nantes,” Antoine said as we watched one of the old men totter out of the bar and off down the darkened street, pausing only to glance furtively around him before he darted into the doorway of the porno store beside the old tobacconist. “The guy whose place it is? Always got plenty of pussy on tap, you know? Black, brown, white, yellow… you ever fuck an Asian chick, Michele?”
    I shrugged again. “They’re all pink inside, no?”
    He laughed at that, and clapped me on the back with that soft hand of his. The air felt grainy, as if the heat had made it swollen and stale, and it was an effort to force it into my lungs.
    “All I’m saying,” Antoine said, very deliberately uncurling a finger from the neck of his beer and pointing it at me, “is we take a day, drive out there, I see Radouane, we get laid, we come home. You try to tell me that doesn’t sound good.”
    It did. I swallowed the last of my beer and wrinkled my nose.
    “I still don’t know why you need a chauffeur,” I said, a trifle petulantly.
    Antoine smiled his sad rag of a smile… the one I should have known better than to trust. “The fuck do you think, branleur ? I don’t want to be bored on the drive. Besides, I want you to watch my back. You can do that, can’t you, Michele? You know I’ll make it worth your while. I’ve always been good to you, no?”
    I nodded reluctantly. True, I could do what he asked, though I didn’t see why he’d asked me. I guessed it was about drugs—it often was, with Antoine—but it puzzled me why he should need to go all the way to Nantes for blow and pussy. Then again, if I was getting a little holiday out of it and all I had to do was drive, what the fuck did I care?
    “All right,” I said. “You got a deal, mec .”
    Antoine grinned and—somewhere, somehow, at the very back of my mind—I would like to say I had a bad feeling.
    Unfortunately, I was an idiot when I was twenty.
     
    * * *
     
    Esther
     
    She straightened up, wiping the back of her hand across her mouth. Under the streetlamp’s thin, ravaged glow, the last smear of red lipstick looked like black oil, and the faint orange light painted an eerie, ashy tone over her skin. There was no moon to speak of tonight, just a slender gold-stained echo of its edge suspended between clouds that tore across the sky like black rags. No stars. The