The Perfect Crime Read Online Free PDF Page A

the force, the drinking that began--something snapped. It was a soft little thing--a click --but ever since, Grady’s take on life had been altered along with his physical view of the world. It was like a man with 20/20 eyesight waking up one day with astigmatism. Grady’s internal vision became slightly skewed along with the external. Nothing seemed to matter as much anymore. He settled into a new life that could more accurately be termed an existence only.
    ***
    Speeding in an ambulance through a light mist down Dayton’s downtown streets, Grady didn’t spend too much effort thinking about the past. What he was involved with was dabbing the seeping blood from Jack’s face and concentrating all his energy on willing his brother to stay alive. It had been a long time since his pulse had raced like this. He was focused on his brother’s face.
    The friend who had failed to recognize him that time would have been surprised to see the change in his body language at that moment.

CHAPTER 4
     
    CHARLES “READER” KINCAID HEADED south and kept to county roads until he got on the Interstate about thirty miles from Dayton. Whacking out that electronics store owner wasn’t part of his original plan but once it was done, he forgot it. People in the way, you eliminated them and got on with the job. Reader Kincaid believed his victim was dead.
    In Memphis he checked into a Motel 6, paying cash and signing a false name. The clerk barely glanced at the name and the license plate number, which was a fiction as well and went back to reading his Motor Trend . After finding a restaurant and polishing off most of a steak he found barely tolerable, Reader drove around until he found an outside pay phone at a Quik Mart. He used the change taken from the cash register at the electronics store.
    The phone rang ten times before it was answered. Reader counted every ring and each trill without an answer got him more and more psed.
    “Yeah? Whozit?”
    He was drunk, Reader thought. Figures.
    “In a couple of days,” Reader spoke softly into the phone. “Sunday. We’re going to take a ride in the country, show you something. I’ve got everything I need. I want you to get something. A dog. Try and get a large one. A German Shepherd. I like German Shepherds. And try and stay sober, Eddie. Get it together. I don’t want a fuckup on my hands. How come you didn’t answer right away? You stroking your trouser worm?”
    ***
    It rained all the way back to New Orleans. Reader was deep in the state of Mississippi before he switched license plates on the Caprice, Frisbeeing the stolen tag far out into a field of sorghum. He made a total of four brief stops, twice each for gas and to relieve his bladder alongside the road.
    All the way back he played the same CD. Miles Davis’ Sketches of Spain. Whenever it reached the end, he hit the restart button. It was the same record he played after killing his daddy. He liked it more than any other of his jazz tapes and CDs. Miles had made it during his flamenco period, saying to the world he was done with bop and cool. Miles was the Man.
    The tune Reader liked the most was Concierto de Aranjuez. It reminded him of the bullfights he enjoyed going to in Mexico. The bullfights and jazz, those were Reader’s loves. He learned a lot, observing the way the matador thrust the sword into the bull’s neck, knowing flawlessly when and where to apply the blade. He would rather be the matador who made the initial thrust, than the torero with his short little dagger who came on for the final kill, the coup de grace, although he admired both for their skill.
    He, too, was a matador. He was one of the blessed ones, the ones with the skill and the nerve. His opponent, though not possessing the brute strength of el toro, owned another strength more formidable--the strength of intelligence.
    That is the way he saw himself and it filled him with pride. He reached over and turned up the volume. He made sure not to exceed