The Orchid Eater Read Online Free PDF

toward the door. Mike
looked at the woman, shrugged apologetically, but couldn’t meet her eyes. He
was still seeing her as a pale opulent mass of sticky, sweet-smelling,
seductive flesh.
    He ran after
Scott and Edgar, all of them straight-faced until they reached Glen Ellen. They
had gone nearly a block before they could speak without choking. Edgar scooped
out the Chiclets and folded up the bags, then started pulling handfuls of
candy from his pockets.
    “Who wants
what?” he asked.
    “I pay my
own way,” said Scott, shaking a Snickers bar out of his sleeve.
    Edgar
offered candy bars to Mike. “Three Musketeers, Baby Ruth, or Rocky Road?”
    Mike looked
back down Glen Ellen to see if anyone from the store was watching, then shrugged
and took the Rocky Road. “How’d you do that?” he asked as he tore the wrapper
with his teeth. “I was right there watching you.”
    “So was the
manager,” Edgar said. “That’s the challenge.”
    “I can’t
believe it.”
    “Listen to
you,” Scott said. “As if you never stole a thing.”
    “Yeah,
Mike?” Edgar said. “I’ll bet you could get away with anything, innocent-looking
guy like you.”
    “Well, I
haven’t—I mean, nothing big. But I always think it would be great to be like,
you know, an international jewel thief. Planning big heists. Wouldn’t it be
great to commit the perfect robbery? Like that movie Gambit. Do it once and make a
million bucks, then retire.”
    Edgar shook
his head, laughing. “Man, you think big, don’t you?”
    “It would
sure beat fixing broken toasters the rest of your life.”
    “I always
took you for a . . . well, I won’t say it.”
    Mike choked
on the last bite of marshmallow. “Just ’cause I don’t hang around with the
Bathroom Gang? I could plan crimes those guys would never even think of.”
    “Yeah? But
could you pull ’em off?”
    “Sure.
Anyway, who’d suspect a kid?”
    “Maybe they
wouldn’t—a straight-looking kid like you.”
    “We should
start our own gang.”
    Edgar
laughed. “That’s too much work. You just have to find the right one and join
it. Right, Scott? Should we tell him about Hawk?”
    Scott
smirked. “You mean the Sunday School gang?”
    “No, man,
Hawk’s cool. Don’t get the wrong idea. He was on his Jesus trip today, but he’s
not always like that.”
    Suddenly
Mike felt like a bit of an outcast.
    “Hawk?” Mike
said tentatively, aware he’d been left out of something. Usually he knew
exactly what Scott was talking about—knew better than anyone.
    “Forget it,”
Scott said. “He’s no international jewel thief.”
    “Hawk’s the
real thing, man,” Edgar said defensively. Mike couldn’t figure out what they
were talking about, so he said nothing.
    His sense of
camaraderie slightly tarnished, Mike turned his eyes to their goal, the curving
range of coastal hills that hemmed in Bohemia Bay. The slopes, which grew green
for a few months in winter, were yellowish brown by now. The highest, hindmost
peaks of Shangri-La were hidden by the lower hills mounting up to them. From
here at sea level, the heights were cloaked in the slithery silvery green of
eucalyptus. They stopped walking at the base of Shoreview Road, which ascended
and vanished among these leaves.
    Edgar said,
“From here we hitch.”
    They took a
stand by a stop sign where a constant stream of cars came up from the Coast Highway, heading into the hills. Edgar stuck out his thumb. Scott and Mike stood
behind him and watched the cars. A few drivers glanced at them without slowing.
A woman in a run-down VW gave an apologetic shrug, as if to say her car would
never make it to the top with the added load. One man held up his thumb and
forefinger as if pinching a dime. In response, Edgar spread his arms as wide as
they would go. The man grinned and kept driving.
    “Comparing
dick size?” Scott asked.
    “No, man, he
was only going a few blocks, and we’re going all the way.”
    All the way, Mike thought.
    He