Daylight Runner Read Free Page A

few guys on homemade horns. Most instruments were homemade these days. The crowd was in a lively mood, and the music was good, catchy. Sol toyed with the idea of going down, but he contented himself with watching from up in the darkness for a while.
    He recognized the guitarist: it was Cleo. She was pretty handy on those strings, and was leading the singing of some raucous, anarchic anthem. At the center of the pack, as usual. She was rarely without a boyfriend—there were rumors she’d had a girlfriend once too, but he suspected it was just gossip. Music was such a social thing, he thought. Musicians always seemed to have loads of friends. In boxing, you had your teammates, the guys you trained with, but it was different. At least for him. To stay sharp, you had to keep training separate from everything else.
    He turned away from the square and started running again. After climbing over a firewall, he descended some steps, balanced along a jutting wall, and then climbed down a ladder to the uppermost street. Watching the world around him from inside his hood, he ran for another half an hour, taking a winding route home. The evening light was gone, and the busy streets were lit onlyby store windows and the gaslights. He climbed to the roof again, taking a different path back to his apartment, one that led to the single window in the living room.
    Climbing inside, he unstrapped the weights from his wrists…and was immediately aware that there was someone in the darkness with him. Bunching up in a defensive stance, he ducked away from the low light of the window, but it was too late. He felt a blow of something hard and heavy across his left hand, knocking away his guard and sending shooting pain through his wrist. From somewhere, there was the scent of an acidic aftershave. Striking out with the weights in his right hand, his knuckles brushed against the fabric of the man’s jacket. A foot came down heavily on the back of Sol’s knee, and he realized he had two opponents. As he fell to his knees, a hand grabbed his hair, pulling his head back, and a fist landed square on his nose. Pain burst across his face. Something hit the back of his neck, and he crumpled to the floor, stunned. He was dimly aware of two men clambering out of the open window, and then there was silence.
    He lay there for some time, tenderly clutching his broken nose, his eyes full of tears. As he waited for his head to stop spinning, he took a woozy glance around the room. It had been completely ransacked.
    â€œDad’sh goin’ to go nutsh,” he muttered.
    Â 
    â€œYou’ve been broken into,” the police officer confirmed. “Sure as shootin’.”
    â€œI know,” Sol acknowledged sourly.
    He had an ice pack in each hand: one held to his nose, the other pressed against the back of his neck. His voice sounded as if he had a cold, and every time he moved his head a furry headache rolled around inside it. The officer, who had introduced himself as Carling, had made a cursory examination of the door, the window, and the overturned room before delivering his verdict. He did all the talking in an official, monotonous manner, as his partner gazed out the window.
    â€œAnything missing?” he asked, his erasable notepad out.
    â€œNot that I can see.” Sol looked around. “I think I scared them off. Look, aren’t there tests you’re supposed to do? Fingerprints and stuff?”
    â€œNah, they’ll have been wearing gloves.” Carling shook his head. “We get called out to break-ins like this every day. Nothing to look for.”
    Sol scowled. “Thanks for dropping by, anyway.”
    â€œNot sure I like your tone, son.”
    â€œSorry, Officer. I’m sixteen. It’s the only tone I’ve got.”
    Carling chuckled drily. “Wife an’ I used to live in a place like this, had a window just like that one,” he mused. “Got broke into five times.