The Blue Last Read Online Free PDF

he was now putting on as he sat on the edge of his sofa, its worn material resplendent in the slant of sunlight coming through his window.
    Above him, Stone barked once. Stone was not profligate with his barks. That meant Stan was up and in a few minutes the guitar would start warming up. This was not an unpleasant prospect for Stan was careful to tailor his tunes to the time of day. Nothing raucous on a late Sunday morning.
    Music. Carole-anne was sure to follow.
    There came a rat-a-tat-tat on his door. He opened it. Carole-anne said good morning and entered, wearing a blindingly bright coral-colored dress that, together with the sunlight, set her red hair and the room afire. She plunked herself down on the sofa from which he had just risen and removed one of her sandals.
    Jury was holding his other shoe and wondered if in this symmetry there was some oblique, symbolic message. No. Carole-anne had a pedicure in mind. She was unscrewing a bottle of hot-pink nail polish.
    â€œYou look like the coral reef off Key West, an endangered species.”
    â€œIs that a compliment, then? Or are you saying I look like crumbled rocks?”
    Jury had seated himself in his easy chair and said, “I don’t think any of our conservationists would call a coral reef or you crumbled rocks.”
    Her toes planted against the edge of his coffee table, she applied the nail polish in little dabs to her toes, observed Jury’s shoe lacing up and asked, “You going out? It’s Sunday.”
    â€œSunday is a going-out day. Maybe the most of the entire week. People veritably live in pubs from noon to night.”
    Her chin on her upraised knee, she asked, “You going to the Angel, then?”
    â€œNope.”
    â€œThen where?”
    Jury stopped his lacing to take in the mellow music coming through the ceiling. He sighed. “He’s great.”
    â€œStan? We’re going to the Angel.” She had taken down one foot and put up the other. “Where’re you going?”
    â€œOh, I don’t know.”
    â€œWell, you were looking pretty hangdog yesterday when you came home.”
    â€œNo kidding?” Jury wondered if there was any breakfast stuff in his frig and wished for the zillionth time he had a cigarette.
    â€œSo where were you? I mean besides where the waitress was?”
    He smiled. “Around.”
    She paused in her polish application and looked at him. “Then you need a little hair of the dog like.”
    He gave a short laugh. “I’m not hung over, though I admit I tried hard enough to wind up with one last night.”
    â€œI don’t mean booze.” Her head bent again, she worked on her little toenail. “I mean you should go back around.”
    â€œBack around?”
    â€œBack around the City, back where you were yesterday.” She examined her bare foot, the freshly painted nails. “Except,” she added, “that coffee place. Too much caffeine is bad for a person.”
    Plus other things, Jury thought, with a smile.

Six
    P erhaps she was right, even though it was strange advice coming from Carole-anne, who usually saved her prognostications, anything that hinted of Jury’s future, for the Starrdust, where she told fortunes by way of a crystal ball. Or rather by way of her blue-green eyes. Andrew Starr loved it; it was unusual to have men patronize the Starrdust, given its main purpose was the casting of astrological charts, and men didn’t want to be seen as believing in astrology. But now there were men aplenty.
    Sunday was a good day for an undisturbed walk about the City. He wondered if Mickey was in his office, if he spent weekends there instead of at home where his mortality would be constantly mirrored in the faces of his family. Even if Mickey could forget for five minutes, they couldn’t, at least not for the same five minutes.
    Jury supposed it was another price, ironic in being exacted, that the seriously ill had to