Death Will Have Your Eyes Read Free Page B

too.”

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    MACARONI CHEESE
RED BEENS & RICE
MUSTARD GREENS COOKED WITH SALT PORK

BEETS
MASH POTATOS
GREEN BEENS (CHOOSE TWO)
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    The blackboard hung on a side wall, eraser dangling from it by a foot or so of heavy string, menu chalked on in scraggly printed letters.
    Those of us who are close to forty, our fathers used to take us to places like Mindy’s on rare nights mom was at work or for some other reason not home. That was back before fast-food spots sprang up four to every street corner; going in there reminded me how much things have changed, and how little we notice it.
    There were two or three career coffee drinkers artfully arranged at the counter, lime-green Formica printed with those sketchy boomerang shapes you saw everywhere in the fifties; a couple of kids sitting together in a booth sopping up grease out of waxed-paper wrappers with their hamburgers; a scatter of older folk with one or another of the day’s $4.95 specials, drink and roll included.
    I could just make out a steamy corner of the kitchen through the gunport-like window behind the counter. From time to time heads ducked down to peer out, or disembodied hands and arms slid out plates heaped with food. At least two radios were playing back there.
    Howard the Horse was, indeed, at his accustomed table, jockey cap everything I’d been led to expect. I was reasonably sure it had started out yellow. Howard himself had started out lanky, gaunt. Ichabod Crane was still in there somewhere, sunk in Nero Wolfe’s body, waiting. As I approached, he tore open two packets of sugar and dumped them into a glass of milk. Then he slowly drank it all, watching me over the rim of the glass as I sat across from him. The sugar had turned to sludge at the bottom. He kept the glass tilted till the sludge had snailed down the side into his mouth. Then he put the glass on the table with his hand still on it and watched me some more.
    â€œHow old are you?” he said.
    I told him.
    He snorted. A little milk came out of one nostril.
    â€œYoung.” Though I wasn’t.
    He shook his head and dabbed at the milk, almost daintily, with a shirt sleeve. “Used to be young myself. Long ago, in a land far away: you know? I can almost remember it, sometimes. Now I got your basic sugar diabetes, your basic ulcers, your basic high blood. Bad hearts in my family, on both sides, as far back as anyone can remember. When it rains, I can’t breathe. When it’s dry, I can’t breathe. Few days I can breathe, my ankles start swelling up like snakebites.” He pushed the glass away. “So what can I do for you?”
    â€œSounds like I better ask fast, before you keel over on me.”
    â€œMaybe you should at that, boy. Not the kind for keeling over, though. Most likely just stay propped up here and looking pretty much like I always do. Could even be some time before anyone noticed a difference, come to think of it.”
    He held up a hand. The waitress must have been watching for his sign and poured him another glass from a plastic jug under the counter. She brought it over and asked if I wanted anything. I thanked her and said no. He reached for two more sugars.
    â€œSo you don’t want food or a cup of coffee, what do you want?”
    â€œI have trouble sleeping.”
    â€œI remember that too, being able to sleep. Almost as good as eating whatever you want. Sleep till noon, pull the covers up over your head and sleep till it started getting dark again. Now I know every crack in my ceiling like I know my shoe size. But a man your age, there’s no excuse for you having trouble like that. Get yourself a woman, son. Or a hot bath. A bottle.”
    â€œWhatever works.”
    â€œYou got it. Good old all-American pragmatism.”
    â€œI think the reason I can’t sleep is because I have this dream there’s someone in the room with me, Howard.”
    He didn’t say anything, but he knew. He dumped in his