Feelers Read Free Page A

have, had they known what he was thinking.
    His first stop was probably a hardware or home store, perhaps some little mom-and-pop place on Queens Boulevard.
    “Can I help you?”
    Danny would smile at the store owner. A smile like that of a child, really. You know the kind—like everything was new and pleasant. Probably because it was. Nobody knew he had just gotten out of prison. Nobody knew he was a killer. Nobody was treating him like scum.
    Why would the owner suspect? Danny was wearing the suit and turtleneck he wore in court fifteen years ago. Never mind that the suit was a little tight around the shoulders, the lapels long, the belt bunching the pants around his waist.
    “Thank you, I could use some help. Could you tell me where you have the kitchen stuff?”
    “Housewares?”
    “Thank you.”
    “Anything in particular?”
    “No.”
    At this point, I imagine the store owner paused, sensing something, but not knowing what, before leading the parolee to the spatulas, meat thermometers, and turkey basters.
    “Here y’go.”
    “Thank you.”
    Probably a few minutes went by before Danny appeared at theregister. It would not have taken long, because Mr. Manners knew exactly what he wanted, even though he told the store owner no.
    The owner looked a little uneasily at the assembled products. He thought about asking what Danny was making for dinner that would require three ice picks, a meat hammer, and boot laces.
    Small plastic shopping bag in hand, Danny began walking south, against the shadows of parking meters and hydrants toward Brooklyn again. He needed some privacy. But not for very long.
    So he probably stopped in a bar, which on a hot spring day was likely to be empty except for pensioners nursing beers while watching the latest from Pimlico on cable TV. He put a ten-dollar bill on the bar and ordered a cola, no ice. If it was a barmaid, she probably put a hand to her hair, maybe batted her eyelashes at the tall dark stranger.
    In the bathroom, he removed his jacket and struggled with the plastic packaging to open his purchases. The boot laces were threaded through holes he poked in the lining of his jacket at the shoulders, dropping the ends down the sleeves. These ends he tied to the handles of the ice picks. When he put his jacket back on, the ice picks hung down the inside of his sleeves to his forearms, hidden. But all he had to do was shrug a certain way on one side or the other and the ice pick slid down to where he could grab it. He could not grab both at the same time, but how often does one need two ice picks to kill someone?
    The other boot lace he looped through the hole in the handle of the meat hammer. The loop was big enough to go over his wrist. This weapon he tucked in his belt, at his side.
    Then there was the third ice pick. He tried tying it to his leg, but it was too uncomfortable, so he just put it in his inside breastjacket pocket. Why so many ice picks? Probably an impulse purchase. Presented with a bounty of well-made shivs, and at such a low price compared to prison, I think he could not resist stocking up. They say you cannot have enough weapons handy in the lockup. Especially if you’re a prison hit man.
    Exiting the bathroom, he walked down the bar, picked up his change, and said thank you to the barmaid before walking back out into the bright sun. The barmaid shrugged and dumped his untouched cola in the sink.
    Sun. There was so much of it—he had forgotten. He stopped at a bargain store where they have the racks of cheap sunglasses out front. He was a little frustrated by all the stupid sunglasses they sold, ones with strangely tinted lenses, and many looked more like goggles.
    I have to wonder if the clerk asked Danny if he was buying the sunglasses for his wife, because he purchased some giant black counterfeit Donna Karans. But how was he to know?
    Somewhere along his walk, I like to think he had to pass a cop standing on the sidewalk. Maybe just as he was exiting the