Tightrope Walker Read Online Free PDF

know what you find out, okay? I begin to feel I know Hannah myself.”
    “All right,” I said. “I will.” But of course I wouldn’t. I counted out fifteen dollars and placed them on his desk.
    I’d reached the door when he said, looking after me, “My friends call me Os, by the way. Short for Osbourne.”
    Struck shy by this I said inanely, “I’m called Amelia,” and fearing this sounded flippant I turned scarlet and fled.

3
    Danson Street was in the warehouse district over by the river. I caught a bus across town that deposited me in front of a store with a brand-new window and the name S. S. Schwarz, Skull Cap Mfr., overhead. In the window, on shelves, sat tall, conical spools of thread like so many Turkish fezes, and under them a pile of completed yarmulkes. I crossed the street to number 305, where there was also a new window set into a dingy wooden front. A really good painting hung there: palette-knife work, the paint thick and juicy and clotted with dizzying whorls of blue that sucked the eye round and round and down into the vortex where a single eye stared at me unblinkingly, The hand-printedcard at its base read COMPULSION by Oliver Keene. I rather liked that. I have my compulsive moments, too: I get sucked into maelstroms of frenetic activity that keep me from sitting down and giving up, which happens when I experience feelings of total inadequacy. I sometimes think if you harnessed enough compulsive people together their tensions could probably supply energy to a fair-sized city.
    It was possible, although I didn’t care to admit it, that I would presently find myself growing compulsive about this unknown and mysterious Hannah.
    I pushed the buzzer and the woman who opened the door at number 305 looked as if she’d never experienced an inadequate moment in her life. She was easily six feet tall, an Amazon of a woman with a face like a Barbie doll. She wore jodhpurs and a white shirt open almost to her navel, and her curves were breakneck; I must have said “wow” without realizing it, or perhaps my eyes did, because she grinned.
    “Honey,” she said, “it’s God-given and there’s nothing I can do about it except hold out for a man with a million bucks. What do you want?”
    “I’m looking for Oliver Keene.” Her grin was as wholesome as cornflakes but it still left me feeling I’d been a fool to stop my chest exercises.
    “Ollie? You’d better come in and wait, he’s dashed out for some alizarin crimson.” She pushed the door wider and I followed her inside. “I’m Daisy,” she called over her shoulder.
    “I’m Amelia Jones,” I answered politely, feeling about ten years old, and 20–18–20 next to those curves.
    It was a nice studio. It was the first one I’d ever seen outside of films, and Oliver Keene must have seen the same films I did, because it matched. There was a huge wooden easel under the skylight, a circular model stand nearby, and paintings stashed in cubbyholes and leaningagainst walls. The room held a pungent odor of turp and paint and mildew that tickled my nostrils. The easel was empty but there were drawings all over the drafting table in the corner, and out of curiosity I walked over and looked at them. Not exactly porno but cheap, I thought, all of them lascivious nudes, and all of them Daisy: wearing only a shawl, riding a bicycle under a floppy hat, or naked in the sand. They probably paid well.
    “So what did you want to see him about?” Daisy asked, looking me over. “If you came to ask about modeling, honey, your bones are great but this week he’s doing sexy calendars. Twelve undressed girls, all of them me, and I don’t think—” She had perched on a tall stool, where she towered over me.
    “I appreciate your tact,” I told her, smiling—it was impossible not to like her—“but I came to ask about a hurdy-gurdy he sold to the Ebbtide Shop in November. I’m tracing it for a customer.”
    “Oh,” she said, thinking about this and