Death Will Have Your Eyes Read Free Page A

to the bed, pausing twice to listen closely, I was aping his own footsteps. And by the time he realized no one was there, and turned, I was behind him.
    â€œThe weather tomorrow will be fair,” I said, “with temperatures in the mid-60s and a light southeasterly wind, brisker towards evening.”
    He started to speak, then simply shook his head. He was thirtyish, with flat gray eyes, blond hair, a tan poplin suit. He wasn’t new at this. He’d been at one end or another of it many times before.
    â€œIt would be terrible to miss such a day,” I said. “We have so few of them.”
    A lengthy silence as his eyes caught my own, and held. Then: “The seasons do go on.”
    â€œYes,” I said.
    Another long silence.
    â€œI do not know you.”
    I shook my head. “Nor I, you. It can stay that way.”
    â€œYes. Sometimes that is the best choice.” He looked briefly about the room. “It seems the client neglected to provide me with information necessary to executing the assignment.”
    â€œThere’s not a lot of professionalism left.”
    â€œHe failed to tell me what you were. I would have to say that such bad faith voids the contract. You would agree?”
    â€œI would.” But this man’s utter humorlessness, those gray eyes round and flat and hard as lentils, still frightened me.
    â€œGood,” he said. He watched light sweep quickly along the wall, snag in a corner and momentarily brighten there, then fade, as a car passed outside. “I was to kill you, you know.”
    I nodded.
    â€œWould I have been able to do that?” He remained staring at the wall, as though awaiting the next car.
    I held out a hand, palm up. “You didn’t.” And shrugged. “Maybe the only things that can be, are those that are .”
    â€œBut we will never know.” Philosophy at five in the morning with the man who came to take you down: we lead a rich life, out here on the edge.
    He looked back at me.
    â€œOnly once before have I come to kill a man and turned away from it.”
    â€œThen I’m glad I could be here to share this moment with you.”
    After a moment he said: “A joke.”
    I nodded.
    He nodded back. “I was sixteen. I went into my father’s room, where he was, as most nights, drunk and sleeping. I had brought along a knife from the kitchen, the sharpest one I could find. For a long time I stood with the knife poised above his chest, looking down at him, slowly coming to understand that I did not have to kill him now, that it was enough just to know how easily I could have. That was the last time I saw him.”
    He still had not moved. His eyes remained on mine.
    â€œHis grave is covered with kudzu now. You know about kudzu? Amazing stuff. Brought over from Japan to help control erosion, then it started taking over everything. Climbs radio towers, covers entire hills a foot or two deep. People have to go out every day and chop it back from their yards.”
    Lights again went by outside, but barely showed on the wall. He started towards the door and I went along.
    â€œThe man you will be wanting to see is Howard the Horse. He will not be wanting to see you.”
    â€œAnd where would I start looking?”
    â€œYou would probably start looking at a greasy spoon on Ervay and North Main.” He pronounced it greezy . “You would probably stop looking there, too.”
    â€œA joke.”
    Nothing. Not a blink, not even a shrug.
    â€œMindy’s Diner. Corner table, rear. Guy wears a jockey cap year ’round, day and night. Looks to be the same cap going on ten years now.”
    â€œThanks.”
    â€œThink of it as professional courtesy.”
    â€œI owe you.”
    â€œNo. No one owes me.”
    We walked to the door together. I opened it for him.
    â€œEnjoy the fine weather tomorrow,” I said.
    He looked back. After a moment he said, “You