Bullets of Rain Read Free Page B

had not yet turned on the halogens over his drafting table; that would be too much like an acknowledgment of work. With a soft, rubberized Number Two he sketched a wandering maze, like a sky view of a rat's tubular exercise run. The pencil came from a galvanized container of twenty identical ones, all identically sharpened on a matte black device that emitted a coffee grinder noise and was guaranteed for life by its Swiss makers. Springboarding from the idea of his bulletproof acrylic windows, he wondered how the entire restaurant complex would "present" if its accoutrements were totally composed of transparent material. To walk on a world of glass would be precarious and disorienting; it made him crack a grin that only involved half his mouth. He thought of Carlsbad Caverns, of Indian pueblos, of making the search for one's favored watering holes into some kind of urban exploratory expedition, all beneath a ceiling of skylights.
        For those people who didn't do all their shopping on the internet, anyway.
        It was a game try, but Art knew he was in a rut, forcing half-baked inspiration to service a contractual obligation. It was grim, akin to a gravedigger filling a hole, instead of a landscaper sculpting a garden. He had begun to wonder whether anyone actually looked at his designs anymore. So long as they came in on time, filled space, and were attached to the cachet of his name, did anyone really notice, or care?
        The mailbag offered Citibank, telephones, gas, power, insurance, and the usual hustles from strangers. He resented the way printouts could be programmed for a nakedly obvious faux-personalization, then "signed" with a patently bogus printed signature. It was deceptive and meant to entrap, like the many ad campaigns for most of the restaurants slated for Art's reinterpretation. Places to eat needed to be inviting, not demanding. Customers needed the humanity the internet rarely offered. They plodded into mall shops like convicts walking the last mile. Buyers should want to enter, not be forced by some grim need. They always slapped down cash or plastic as though making a sacrifice to the gods of materialism. The phenomenon was most pronounced come Christmastime-which was to say, the "holiday" period extending from the day after Labor Day until ten days into January. There was not much left that was enticing about a holiday that lasted four straight months, though merchants saw it the other way around. Art had given up Christmas a long time ago.
        A postcard dropped out of the stack. The Golden Gate Bridge , real tourist shit. Written on the back, in marker, Art read: YOU CAN RUN BUT YOU CAN'T HIDE. HAVE A BEER, YOU FUCK. Followed by the initial D with a flourish.
        That would be Derek… whom Art had not seen or communicated with for several years. There was no return address and the card was postmarked more than a week ago.
        Derek-Darius Centurion Hill-had dropped out of Art's life shortly after Lorelle died. He had gone from being a once-per-week dinner guest to an invisible man. He had shot pool and drunk beer and hung out during a time when Art kept virtually no male friends. Buddy structures often collapsed as a casualty of marriage, but Derek had remained steadfast. When Art had blown sour blood-alcohol for a state trooper, Derek posted bail, picked him up, and warp-speeded him home, violating the posted limits all the way. When Lorelle had first been hospitalized, Derek was the first outsider to visit, lying to the duty nurse that he was a family member. He could be counted on to hoist the opposite end when something needed moving. The day he came into his inheritance, he promptly quit his job at Lockheed, where he had specialized in aerodynamic design. He had collided with Art at some tech conference and they stuck to each other, opting out of the dry roll call of seminars to seek adventure in Tucson, which, at the time, had been a new city to both of them.