28 Hearts of Sand Read Free Page A

filled as it was allowed to get, and then handed the kettle back to Gregor. Then she turned off the faucet with her finally free hand.
    “There,” she said. “It’s not all that difficult once you get used to it.”
    “Ten years at hard labor isn’t all that difficult once you get used to it,” Gregor said. “But I wouldn’t want to try it.”
    “Oh, Gregor. It isn’t going to take ten years. It isn’t going to take ten months, not the difficult parts of it, anyway. I know it looks like a mess, but it always does until it’s over. And besides. I thought you had work to do. I thought this was a big, important case you were working on. At least, that’s the way you made it sound when you got that call about it.”
    “I don’t know that I’d say it was important, exactly,” Gregor said. “Not anymore. It’s an historical oddity, though. It’s important to the Bureau, because the original case was important. It wasn’t something I worked on when I was there.”
    “Still, you’re interested in it,” Bennis said. “I don’t mean to be vague or flippant about it. It’s just that I have my mind on other things. It would be a good idea if you had your mind on other things, too. That way, we wouldn’t get in each other’s hair. Or something.”
    Bennis had been putting coffee bags into cups and then water on top of them. She handed a cup to Gregor and went to the kitchen door. The thunder and lightning were still going on full blast. The day outside looked darker than it should have for this time of year.
    Bennis opened the kitchen door and looked out. Wind blew rain into the house and into her face.
    “What are you doing?” Gregor asked. “It’s a mess out there.”
    Bennis was still standing with the door open. “I don’t know,” she said. “I heard something odd a minute ago. When I was in the bathroom.”
    “Of course you heard something odd out there. It’s an absolute mess.”
    Bennis closed the door. “It wasn’t that kind of something odd,” she said. “I don’t know what it was. It just sounded wrong.”
    “That’s the kind of thing you say that I never know how to respond to,” Gregor said. “Are you coming to the Ararat? I told Tibor we’d meet him.”
    “I’ll come in a bit. Donna’s supposed to be here any minute to help me with some things about the wallpaper. I really do hate wallpaper, but sometimes it seems to be the only answer. You can’t take apart plaster walls the way you do Sheetrock. I never thought I’d say it, but I’m beginning to feel kindly about Sheetrock.”
    “I’m not a hundred percent certain I know what Sheetrock is,” Gregor said. “I’m going to go on over. Tibor and I will keep you a place.”
    Bennis went back to the kitchen door, and opened it, and looked out. The wind was making a high-pitched whine.
    Bennis closed the door again. “I really wish I knew what that noise was,” she said.
    Gregor hadn’t heard anything to wonder about, so he finished off his coffee and headed back to the stairs to find a Windbreaker and an umbrella.
    2
    It was June. Gregor was sure it could not be really cold in late June, and that the rain could not be half sleet hitting his face like tiny needles—but that’s what it felt like, and the world was so dark, it almost seemed plausible. He kept his head down and his eyes on the sidewalk. He knew his way to the Ararat by instinct, even from this direction. He wished the day were less than terminally depressing, as if it mattered what the weather was.
    Through the Ararat’s broad front plate glass window, Gregor could see Father Tibor Kasparian sitting in their usual booth, little stacks of papers spread out across the long, wide surface. The wind started picking up again. Gregor pulled the hood of his Windbreaker farther up over his head and went inside.
    As soon as he stepped through the door, a dozen heads looked up from half as many tables, noted who had come in, and went back to whatever they had