Doyle After Death

Doyle After Death Read Free Page B

Book: Doyle After Death Read Free
Author: John Shirley
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report to an angel or something?”
    â€œHaven’t got any angels that I know of, or anything else like that. Some ladies look like angels, without the wings. Most of ’em don’t act like angels though, God bless ’em.” He stuck the twig back in his mouth and chewed meditatively. “Oh, I suppose I oughta take you over to the boardinghouse, so you don’t have to go to the trouble to grow a cottage, right off, or beg a room in one of the big houses. Not that you couldn’t just stay outdoors, if you were of a mind to, there’s no skeeters. It’s pretty good, clement weather around here if you stay close to town. Well, sir, right this way.” He straightened up, stretched, and started off down the street, hands back in his pockets.
    I fell into step beside him, and we walked east along Main Street. “So you have weather here.”
    â€œSure do. Even seasons, in a mild way. But if you want wild weather, you travel for it. Some do. What’d ya’ll do, for a living? In the Before, I mean.”
    â€œI was a half-­assed private investigator. Las Vegas.”
    â€œI used to have dealings with private eyes in the Before. I was a horse-­race tout. Well, I did a lot of stuff. Bookie. Card sharp. Not that I ever cheated nobody. I was just good at cards. Knew when to hold ’em, when to fold ’em. You want to play some poker? We got standard fifty-­two-­card decks here.”
    â€œMaybe later. Where’s that boardinghouse?”
    â€œThat’s where we’re headed.”
    I felt pretty comfortable with him. He was a gambler and I’d just come from Vegas. “You been here awhile?” I asked.
    â€œYeah. The suit tell you? We never seem to develop fashions here. Some try, now and then”—­he grinned—­“but it’s unfashionable to have a fashion. Yes sir, I was shot dead by Big Jim Krest in Forth Worth, in 1940, so I’ve been here, uh . . . how long is it?”
    â€œBit more than seventy years.”
    â€œSeventy years!” He whistled. “Well I’ll be a ding dong daddy from Tallahassee. I done lost track.”
    â€œHow’d we end up here, in this . . . town? I mean why here, particularly, Bertram? Why us, why here?”
    He grinned ruefully. “I’m no expert on that airy fairy stuff, hoss. I just look for a chance to have a good time. I take me a walk, I smell the air, have a drink, play some cards. Try my luck with the ladies. Glad to be still around at all in some way. I don’t know that much about how the town got here. Or how I got here—­why me, why here. I have wondered. It’s true this ain’t like where I was living, pre-­death. I was a towny.”
    â€œMe too. Seems a strange fit.”
    â€œBut would you really want a—­where’d you say, Las Vegas? I’ve heard about that Vegas. Would you really want a Las Vegas afterlife?”
    â€œHell no. I was no saint but I wasn’t that bad.”
    â€œAnyway, what I hear is, where you show up in this world is something you choose . You just didn’t know you were choosing it. And you choose it because somehow you know you need it.”
    I looked around skeptically, and suddenly realized that I liked it here. The gently scintillating sun was rising up over the bluffs between the town and the sea, and I felt its subtle warmth on the back of my neck; saw it was stretching my shadow out over the cobblestones. It definitely seemed like a real place, not just some afterlife dream. The cobblestones were dirty, cracked in places. The cottages lining the road had a certain shabbiness about them. Not decayed, just worn, like they weren’t getting enough maintenance. Some of them were flanked by thick trees dangling with Spanish moss; it looked incongruous with the Old New England housing.
    â€œ . . . Gettaclue. Gettaclue. Here I am. Here I am. Here I am

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