Books of Blood Read Free Page A

gratis, thanks to services he had once rendered the owner. Tonight the table would go empty.
    Not  that his stomach suffered. He had only been sitting with Swann an hour or so when Valentin came up and said:
    'How do you like your steak?'
                       13'Just shy of burned,' Harry replied.
    Valentin was none too pleased by the response. 'I hate to overcook good steak/ he said.
    'And I hate the sight of blood,' Harry said, 'even if it isn't my own.'
    The  chef clearly despaired of his guest's palate, and turned to go.
    'Valentin?'
    The man looked round.
    'Is that your Christian name?' Harry asked.
    'Christian names are for Christians,' came the reply.
    Harry nodded. 'You don't like my being here, am I right?'
    Valentin made  no reply. His eyes had drifted past Harry to the open coffin.
    'I'm not going to be here for long,' Harry said, 'but while I am, can't we be friends?'
    Valentin's gaze found him once more.
    'I don't have any friends,' he said without enmity or self-pity. 'Not now.'
    'OK.  I'm sorry.'
    'What's to be sorry for?' Valentin wanted to know.
    'Swann's dead. It's all over, bar the shouting.'
    The  doleful face stoically refused tears. A stone would weep sooner, Harry guessed. But there was grief there,
    and all the more acute for being dumb.
    'One question.'
    'Only one?'
    'Why  didn't you want me to read his letter?'
    Valentin raised his eyebrows slightly; they were fine enough to have been pencilled on. 'He wasn't insane,'
    he said. 'I didn't want you thinking he was a crazy man,
    because of what he wrote. What you read you keep to yourself. Swann was a legend. I don't want his memory besmirched.'
                       14'You should write a book,' Harry said. 'Tell the whole story once and for all. You were with him a long time, I hear.'
    'Oh yes,' said Valentin. 'Long enough to know better than to tell the truth.'
    So saying he made an exit, leaving the flowers to wilt,
    and Harry with more  puzzles on his hands than he'd begun with.
    Twenty  minutes later, Valentin brought up a tray of food: a large salad, bread, wine, and the steak. It was one degree short of charcoal.
    'Just the way   I like it,' Harry said, and  set to guzzling.
    He didn't see Dorothea Swann, though God knows he thought about her often enough. Every time he heard a whisper  on the stairs, or footsteps along the carpetted landing, he hoped her face would appear at the door, an invitation on her lips. Not perhaps the most appropriate of thoughts, given the proximity of her husband's corpse, but what would the illusionist care now? He was dead and gone. If he had any generosity of spirit he wouldn't want to see his widow drown in her grief.
    Harry  drank  the half-carafe of wine Valentin had brought, and when - three-quarters of an hour later -
    the man re-appeared with coffee and Calvados, he told him to leave the bottle.
    Nightfall was near. The traffic was noisy on Lexington and Third. Out of boredom he took to watching the street from the window. Two  lovers feuded loudly on the sidewalk, and only stopped when a brunette with a hare-lip and a pekinese stood watching them shamelessly. There were  preparations for a party in the brownstone opposite: he watched a table lovingly laid, and candles lit. After a time the spying began todepress him, so he called Valentin and asked if there was a portable television he could have access to. No sooner said than provided, and for the next two hours he sat with the small black and white monitor on the floor amongst  the orchids and  the lilies, watching whatever mindless entertainment it offered, the silver luminescence flickering on the blooms like excitable moonlight.
    A  quarter after midnight, with the party across the street in full swing, Valentin came up. 'You want a night-cap?' he asked.
    'Sure.'
    'Milk; or something stronger?'
    'Something stronger.'
    He produced  a bottle of fine cognac, and two glasses.
    Together they toasted the