The Minotaur Read Free Page A

road. Jesus . . . Something black and
wet beside him. A tree trunk, where the passenger seat used to be.
    The car was half wrapped around a tree. He had gone down over
the edge and rolled several times and smashed into a tree. That
asshole in the pickup . . . trying to kill him.
    He wasn’t hurt too bad. Thank God for seat belts. Blood on his
face, minute pieces of glass everywhere. He was still groggy.
What’s that smell? Gasoline! A leak. He fumbled for the seat-belt
release.
    Someone was beside him, reaching in through the smashed win-
dow- “Hey—“
    He was being splashed with something wet “What—” Gas! It
was gas! “Please, you gotta—“
    Out of the comer of his eye he saw the lighted match come
floating through the broken window. The roar of the gasoline ignit-
ing was the last sound he heard.
    2
    The airplanes were shiny and
brilliant in their bright colors of red, yellow and blue. They hung in
the window suspended on wires, frozen in flight, the spring sun-
light firing the wings and fuselages and emphasizing the sleek
perfection of their forms. -
    Jake Grafton stood on the sidewalk and stared. He examined
each one carefully, letting his eyes roam from tail to prop to gull-
Hke wingtip. After a moment he pushed the door open and went
into the warm shop, out of the weak sunshine and the cool breeze
coming off the ocean.
    As he stood and gazed at another dozen or so planes banging
from the ceiling, the shop proprietor behind the glass counter laid
aside his newspaper and cleared his throat. “Good morning.”
    “Hi.” Jake glanced at the man. He was balding and bearlike and
perched on a stool. “You’ve got some nice airplanes here.”
    “Sure do. You have a son interested in radio control?”
    Jake let his eyes find the swooping, soaring forms above his
head. “No,” he said thoughtfully. “Just looking.”
    The proprietor began turning the pages of his newspaper as Jake
moved deeper into the shop. He wandered slowly, examining the
counter displays, fingering balsa from a wire bin, scanning the rack
of X-actokmves and miniature drills, looking at the rows and rows
of boxes with airplanes and cars on the covers that stood on shelves
behind the counter. Finally, back at the door, he muttered his
thanks to the shopkeeper and went out onto the sidewalk.
    The sea breeze was brisk this morning and tangy with salt. Not
many people on the street. This Delaware beach town lived on
tourists and summer was a long way off. At least the sun was out
after a week of low, scuddy clouds and intermittent drizzle. Stand-
ing there, Jake could faintly hear the gulls crying as they soared
above the beach and boardwalk a half block away. He looked again
at the airplanes in the window, then went back into the shop.
    “Sell me an airplane,” he said as the proprietor looked up from
his newspaper.
    “Delighted to. Which one you want?”
    Jake scanned the planes hanging from the ceiling. He began to
examine them critically.
    “You ever build an RC plane before?”
    “Build? You mean I can’t buy one already made?”
    “Not any of these, you can’t. My son built all these years ago,
before he went to the air force. They’re his.”
    “Build one,” Jake said softly, weighing it He hadn’t figured on
that. Oh well, the decision was already made. Now he wanted a
plane. “Let me see what you have.”
    Forty minutes later, with a yellow credit card invoice for
$349.52 tucked into bis wallet, Jake Grafton left the hobby store
carrying two large sacks and walked the block to his car. He
walked purposefully, quickly. For the first time in months he had a
task ahead that would be worth doing.
    Fifteen minutes later he parked the car in the sand-and-crushed-
seashell parking area in front of his house. He could hear the faint
ringing of the telephone as he climbed the steps to the little wooden
porch. He unlocked the front door, sat one of the paper sacks on
the floor and strode across the living room for the phone on