Cinderella Read Free Page B

consciously, his conscious mind tells him that this offscreen automobile is Otto Samalson's. His conscious mind is a raisonneur, wide awake, explaining to half-asleep Matthew that this flashback nightmare will soon replay scenes he has never witnessed. The offscreen car is Otto Samalson's and soon Matthew will be subjected to the horror of his death, an event he can only blindly conjure, but such is the magic of nightmare.
        He is talking to Otto on the telephone. He is asking Otto if he can take on a surveillance case. Otto is saying he's working another case right now, but if Matthew doesn't mind a little time-sharing he can start maybe Tuesday, will that be all right?
        "What I'm doing," he says, "I'm taking Monday off like a normal human being."
        The sound of the car is closer, it nudges the unconscious, demands to be driven onscreen. Matthew knows the car is a blue Buick Century, he has seen the car before. That he can only hear it now, cannot see it now, is frustrating. And yet he does not want to see it. He knows that once it enters the dream, he will know true horror, he will witness a close friend dying. He wants Otto to stay alive, to be alive, he wants the car to drive all the way to Tampa on I-75, bypassing Calusa, bypassing the nightmare.
        Friday.
        Is it Friday already?
        Friday, the sixth day of June, 4:00 p.m. or thereabouts, Otto Samalson sitting in Matthew's office, smoking a cigarette. It is difficult to imagine this man as a private detective. He is no Sam Spade, no Philip Marlowe. He looks instead like a tailor or a shoe salesman. Short and slight of build, mostly bald with a halolike fringe settling above his ears, twinkling blue eyes, his mouth in a perpetual smile, he is the Eli Wallach of the sleuthing profession, enormously likable, immensely sympathetic, a man you would trust to drive your youngest sister to Napoli. Matthew suspects that Otto, with his wonderful bedside manner, could coax a devoted mother into revealing the whereabouts of her ax-murderer son.
        The sound of the car.
        Closer.
        Louder.
        Matthew tosses in half-sleep, half-wakefulness. Outside, the raccoons argue heatedly among themselves, their voices shrill.
        "The guy's been fucking this widow lives in Harbor Acres," Otto is saying. "I've got him going in and out every night since
        I started tailing him. That was Tuesday a week ago, I got him going in and out nine days already. Nice pictures, Matthew, he gets there when it's still light, I catch him with the long lens. I also got a tape I want you to hear. This lady, she thinks this is still Calusa twenty, thirty years ago, she goes out, leaves doors unlocked all over the place. I been in and out twice already. I put my recorder right under the bed, voice-activated. I got some very hot stuff, Matthew, wait'll you hear it. I couldn't bring the tape today 'cause I only got the original, it's in the safe. I'll make a copy, let you hear it next time I see you. Very beautiful stuff, Matthew, the two of them talking very dirty, she's a widow, nice-looking woman in her late-"
        The Buick suddenly roars into view.
        The office is gone.
        There is only U.S. 41 and the blue Buick.
        Otto is behind the wheel. He is smiling.
        Turn back, Matthew thinks.
        "Pictures of them in action are gonna be impossible, I think," Otto is saying, "because so far they only been makin' it with the drapes closed. You maybe have all you need on the tape, anyway, names, everything, a guided tour of what they're doing there in the lady's bed. I shoulda brought it today, but I didn't want to risk it 'cause I'll tell you the truth, if anything happens to that tape I'm not sure I can get in the house so easy again. I think he's on to me, Matthew, and I think the two of them are gonna start being very careful in the not too distant-"
        Otto is still smiling.
        This is a close