The Donzerly Light Read Online Free PDF

mark. He flexed the fingers in and out, fisting, relaxing, fisting, relaxing, watching as Sign Guy maneuvered his cupped hands directly over the Yuban can and let the change just given him drain coin by coin through the slit in the lid. Muffled tings and clonks rose from within the receptacle as the coins fell through the paper money and gathered at the bottom of the can, Sign Guy beaming at Jay throughout the uneven metallic timpani.
    The moment hung between them like the lasting resonance of a bass note played perfectly. Impossibly long. Penetrating. Palpable.
    Jay’s hand closed to a loose fist, his fingertips tracing over the palm, exploring the mesh of tiny, squared-off channels pressed into it. “I’ve gotta,” he began, and Sign Guy was nodding already, “be going.”
    The smile bobbed up and down as Jay took a few steps backward and started to turn. But before he was facing away he saw Sign Guy’s now empty left hand come up into the light, two fingers spreading as before to make the V.
    “Peace, brother.”
    “Yeah,” Jay said softly, then showed the bum his back and headed down Broadway. Twice he glanced back and saw that the bum’s beaming gaze was trailing him, and that he was still showing the peace sign, but after that he looked no more. He simply walked on, night shadows a thick black cloak upon him, thinking about the bum for a few minutes, then about work, then about grabbing a free Reuben or some chicken fried steak at Greenie’s on his way home (Carrie waitressed there, and if the occasional gratis meat wasn’t a good enough reason to have her as his girl, there were plenty more), but not at all did he muse about what he could not know. About the change that had already started, a change that had its own shadows, its own solitary cadence in the night. A change that was already in step with its host, a few paces back like the ever ready servant, or like some cunning beast in slow and steady pursuit. A change that was what it was.
    And not that at all.

 
    Two
    Change
    Maybe it was the hour, late on a Friday night, or maybe it was the familiarity of the company, friends and co-workers that he was pretty sure he could say just about anything to. Or maybe it was the drink, their sixth round in three hours; beer at first, but now the hard stuff was working on their moods, their inhibitions. Whatever the reason, Jay just up and said it, just let it out, and even with the throbbing beat to which a half dozen topless Japanese nymphs were gyrating on Buffalo Kabuki’s slowly rotating stage, it was apparent that his three buddies had heard him, as all were suddenly staring at him as though he’d sprouted a third, winking eye.
    “You did what?” Jude Duffault asked incredulously. “You did fucking what ?”
    Steve Lederer and Bunker Wallace said nothing, leaving it to the defacto leader of their gang of four to get the lowdown on what the fourth of their number had just tossed then out of left field.
    “I talked to him,” Jay said again, his whiskey neat held in one hand. His eyes drifted sluggishly between the drink and his friends.
    A quick shudder moved Jude’s face. His short black hair trembled. “Hold it—you talked to the bum? To Sign Guy?”
    Jay nodded. Nodded and sipped.
    Steve considered his friend with raised eyebrows. “If Old Man Mitchell had been cruising by in that big black limo of his, man, your ass would be in the can.”
    Bunker’s head tipped quizzically at his friend and fellow junior broker at S&M, as they quasi-affectionately referred to their place of employment. “You’re talking about the nutcase down by the church?”
    “He didn’t seem like a nutcase,” Jay countered calmly, though he could see some penned frenzy stirring in two of his buddies. Steve, always the calmest of their number, had already tired of this spike in the evening’s conversation and, his cigarette glowing short between his lips, had turned his attention back to a pair of small-breasted