The Sunlight Dialogues Read Online Free PDF

said. He began on his eggs.
    Prowlcar 19. Kozlowski. Father had a farm out on Tinkham Road. Clean little house, clean little barn, Holstein cows and sheep and a couple of work-horses standing around the willow trees by the pond behind the barn. The old woman had expected her son to take over when the old man had died—buried alive when a pea-vine wagon turned over on him, six months ago now—another poor mortal ground under by the load—but Kozlowski had other ideas. He hated farming. Hated being tied down to the milking three-hundred-and-sixty-five days every year, hated trying to outguess the weather, hated more than anything else the everlasting tedium of setting out fenceposts, cleaning stables, unsnarling rope and old harness leather and baling twine, or mending bags, or crawling out of bed to run after the cows when they got through the fence and took off at a run through some neighbor’s cornlot, no more knowing where they were going than how to spell. He was a small man, with a red face and small red hands and hair the color of dust. He hardly ever spoke. Thoughtful. He sat in the prowlcar, sheepish-looking as usual, waiting for Clumly to catch up.
    Clumly locked his car door and hurried to the back drive gate where Kozlowski waited. “Morning, Stan.”
    Kozlowski grinned.
    “Mind if I ride around?” Clumly asked. He felt exhilarated, like a man slightly drugged.
    “That all you got to do?”
    Clumly laughed grittily and went around the front of the car to the rider’s side, patting the fenders as he passed. Kozlowski watched him get in and smiled dutifully when the door slammed shut, but he was thinking his own thoughts.
    “How’s it going?” Clumly said.
    Kozlowski shrugged. He pulled out onto the street. The radio sputtered. He stopped for the Main Street light.
    “Lot of the boys get annoyed when I come ride around with them,” Clumly said. The car smelled richly of new gas. He’d just been to the pump, Clumly deduced. He sat back more and reached inside his jacket for a cigar. “They get the wrong idea, you know. Cigar?”
    Kozlowski shook his head. The light changed. He started up.
    Clumly chuckled. “I drove prowlcar for seventeen years. You cognizant of that?”
    “No fooling,” Kozlowski said.
    “Yessir. Well, I was younger then. But I’ll tell you one thing. We worked like the devil in those days. Eight P.M. till eight A.M. in the morning, that was my hours for I don’t know how long. And the pay? Son, you couldn’t get a garbage man for the pay we got then. Nine dollars a day. Just as true as I’m setting here.” He opened the glove-compartment and looked inside, then closed it again.
    “Garbage men make a lot of money,” Kozlowski said.
    A car shot past them and abruptly slowed down, no doubt noticing that they were police. Clumly leaned forward to watch the driver, then leaned back, letting it go. “Well, I kept my nose clean,” Clumly said, “and I put in an hour’s work for an hour’s pay. I worked up through the ranks.”
    Kozlowski nodded.
    “Life’s been good to me,” Clumly said. It was a good cigar. The day would be another scorcher, but the breeze coming in through Clumly’s window still had the scent of morning in it, even here in the middle of town. He said: “But I miss the old days, that’s the truth. I don’t say I’d give up what I’m making and go back to patroling—both jobs have their remunerations. But you’re freer out on patrol, I will say that. Nobody watching you all the time, keeping you honest.” He shot a glance at Kozlowski.
    “I don’t mind it,” Kozlowski said.
    “Of course you don’t,” Clumly said heartily. He shifted in the seat, trying to get more comfortable, then closed his eyes a minute. “Well, a lot of the boys get the wrong idea,” he said. “The way I figure, we do this job of ours together. A man can’t run a police force if he doesn’t trust his men.”
    Kozlowski nodded again. He turned down Jackson and crossed