The Red Horseman Read Free

male
dilemma.
    After a bit his mind turned to Judith
Farrell’s message for Jake Grafton.
Probably Farrell hadn’t tried to contact him
when he was home alone because even he and Rita never
knew when that would be. This was his first free Saturday
this month. That crap about brushing her off…
    Well, it was true, he would have.
    Someone told Farrell-told the Mossad–that
he and Rita had tickets to that play last night.
Who?
    He tried to recall just when and to whom at the
office he might have mentioned that he and Rita were going
last night. It was hazy, but he seemed to recall
that the play had been discussed several times by different
people, and he may have said he had tickets.
    He purchased the tickets over a month ago
by calling a commercial ticket outlet and ordering
them. And there was no telling to whom Rita might have
mentioned the planned evening out. It was
certainly no secret.
    So that was a dead end. Frustrated, he went
inside and poured himself another cup of coffee.
    He got out the envelope and looked again at the
photo.
    A very ordinary photo of a very ordinary man..
He held the negative up to the light. It was the
negative of the photo, apparently. Given
to prove the genuineness of the photo.
    Okay, so what was there about the photograph that
made it significant?
    Toad studied it at a distance of twelve inches’
The guy’s sitting in front of a restaurant.
Where? No way to tell. When? Nothing there either.
    Well, Jake Grafton would know what to do with
it.
    Grafton always knew how to handle hot
potatoes, a quality that Toad had long ago
concluded was instinctive. The guy could be tossed
blindfolded into a snake pit and still avoid the
poisonous ones.
    The water began running in the bathroom. Rita
must be taking a shower.
    He replaced the photo and negative in the
envelope and put it into his shirt pocket.
    Toad was outside trimming weeds along the fence
when Rita appeared in the door wearing a flight
suit, her hair braided into a bun that was pinned to the
back of her head.
    “I’m leaving, Toad.”
    He paused and leaned on the fence. “Back for
supper?”
    “Yes. Are you going to call Admiral
Grafton?”
    “I dunno. Haven’t decided.”
    “You are, then.”
    Toad resumed the chore of cutting weeds, trying
not to let his temper show.
    Rita laughed. He tossed the hedge shears down
and turned his back on her.
    In a few seconds she appeared in front of
him. “I love you, Toad-man.”
    He snorted. comI’m gonna ditch you and run
off with ol’ Lizzie Thorn.
    Won’t be nothing here tonight when you get home
except my dirty underwear and busted tennis
racket.”
    She stretched on tiptoe and kissed his cheek.
“See you this evening, lover.”
    The numbers … the numbers appalled
him, shocked him, mesmerized him.
    He wrote them on the back of an old
envelope that he used as a bookmark.
    The stupendous, incomprehensible quantity of
human misery represented by the numbers numbed
him, made it impossible to pick up the book again and
continue reading.
    Jake Grafton stared out the window at the swaying
trees in the yard without seeing them, played with his
mechanical pencil, ran his fingers yet again through his
thinning hair.
    And he looked again at the envelope. Fifteen
million Russians died fighting the Germans
during World War 1. Fifteen million! Dead!
No wonder the nation came apart at the seams. No
wonder they dragged the czar from his palace and put him
and his family against the wall.
    Fifteen million!
    The new republic was doomed. The Bolsheviks
plunged the land into a five-year civil war, a
hell of violence, famine and disease that cost another
fifteen million lives. Another fifteen
million!
    Then came Josef Stalin and the forced
collectivization of Soviet
agriculture. Here the number was nebulous, an
educated guess. One historian estimated six
million families were murdered or starved
to death-another believed at least ten million men,
women, and children perished; young and old, vigorous