The Nothing Man Read Online Free PDF

"The whiz don't do anything at all to you, does it, keed? Just makes you spout a little smoother."
    "That," I said, "is because I am a Courier man. I have my head in the clouds and my feet firmly on the ground."
    "Yeah." He grinned. "Ain't it the truth?"
    He stopped arguing about the county judge deal. We sat drinking and kidding, listening to the slash of the rain against the windows.
    It was only a little after five. Less than an hour ago I'd taken Deborah to the station. But it was almost pitch dark outside with the sudden and violent storm that had struck the city. Stuke shook his black, oily head, cocking a hand to his ear.
    "Dig them waves, will you? Almost three blocks away, and you'd think the ocean was coming right through the door."
    I nodded absently, thinking of Deborah, wishing I could stop thinking of her. I wondered why she'd said-how she'd known-I was sad, right when I was kidding the hardest.
    "What you doing tonight, keed? What you say we step out and play some babes?"
    I shook my head. That was an easy one to duck. "Go over to Rose Island tonight? In this storm?"
    "Yeah," he sighed, "that's right. No ferries runnin' tonight, and no one would take a charter boat out even if you was crazy enough to ride with 'em… Maybe I could-"
    "Now, Stuke, you should know better than that. No loose women in Pacific City… not in the respectable mainland sections of Pacific City."
    "Well-" He broke off abruptly, frowning. He cursed and snapped his fingers. "Christ, pal, I almost forgot to tell you. I ought to have my ass kicked!"
    "I'll go along with the last statement," I said. "What about the first one?"
    "I'm sorry as hell, keed. I meant to call you at the time, but it was almost three o'clock, see, and I figured you'd already be gone from the office." He swallowed and his eyes shifted away from mine. "She came in on the two-thirty bus, Brownie. One of the boys spotted her."
    It was too well done, too carelessly done. Mrs. Clinton Brown's arrival wasn't something that Stuke would forget. By pretending that he had, he was proving the opposite. It meant plenty to him.
    "My wife's over on the island?" I said. "I don't suppose you know the address?"
    "Well, let's see, now," he frowned. "It's-oh, yeah, it's the Golden Eagle, cottage seven. It ain't so bad as most of 'em, keed. Little tourist camp on the south shore."
    "I know what it is," I said. "You can bring your own whore instead of renting theirs."
    He clucked his tongue sympathetically. I set my glass down and raised a hand to my temples. I had to do it; I had to cover my face. Sick and stunned as I was, I was choking with laughter.
    "It's a damned shame, Brownie. I thought she'd given up bothering you."
    "Y-Yeah," I said, shakily. "It's certainly strange."
    "How come you put up with her, anyhow? A man's got to support his wife but he don't have to live with her."
    "One of those things," I mumbled. I lowered my hand and stood up.
    He jumped to his feet also. "Where you going, Brownie? You can't go over to the island tonight. I ain't gonna let you even try it!"
    The hell he said! He'd have given his eyeteeth to have me try it.
    "Don't worry," I said. "There's no way I could get over there tonight. I just want to go home."
    "I'll go with you. I can see this has hit you pretty hard, keed. A time like this, a man needs someone to talk to. I'll take us along a couple bottles, and-"
    "I'll take the bottles," I said, "and go by myself."
    He looked at me, trying to appear concerned and worried while he sized me up. But there wasn't anything for him to see. The two-way pull had taken hold and he wasn't looking at the real me-the me-in-charge-of-me. I'd moved off to one side, and I was moving faster every second. I was miles away and ahead of him.
    "Okay, Brownie," he shrugged, "if that's the way you want it."
    He took two quarts of whiskey from a filing cabinet and twisted a newspaper around them. We said good night, and I left.
    I walked out to my car, walked not ran, and I