LITMIR.BIZ

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Uncle Harry’s on his deathbed in the ICU,” Ethan lied. “Not going to hold on much longer. Since yesterday morning, I been calling George at every number I’ve got for him. He doesn’t get back to me. Doesn’t answer the door now.”

      “I think he’s away,” said Reynerd.

      “Away? He didn’t say anything about it to me. You know where he might’ve gone?”

      Reynerd shook his head. “He was going out with a little suitcase the night before last, as I was coming in.”

      “He tell you when he’d be back?”

      “We just said how it looked like rain coming, and then he went out,” Reynerd replied.

      “Man, he’s so close to Uncle Harry—we both are— he’s going to be upset he didn’t get a chance to say good-bye. Maybe I could leave him a note, so he sees it first thing he gets back.”

      Reynerd just stared at Ethan. An artery began throbbing in his neck. His speed-cycled brain was racing, but although meth ensured frenetically fast thinking, it didn’t assist clear thinking.

      “The thing is,” Ethan said, “I don’t have any paper. Or a pen, for that matter.”

      “Oh. Sure, I got those,” said Reynerd.

      “I really hate to bother you—”

      “No bother,” Reynerd assured him, turning away from the open door, going off to find a notepad, a pen.

      Left at the threshold, Ethan chafed to get into the apartment. He wanted a better look at Reynerd’s nest than he could obtain from the doorway.

      Just as Ethan decided to risk being rude and to enter without an invitation, Reynerd halted, turned, and said, “Come on in. Sit down.”

      Now that the invitation had been extended, Ethan could afford to inject a little authenticity into this charade by demurring. “Thanks, but I just came in from the rain—”

      “Can’t hurt this furniture,” Reynerd assured him.

      Leaving the door open behind himself, Ethan went inside.

      The living room and dining area comprised one large space. The kitchen was open to this front room, but separated from it by a bar with two stools.

      Reynerd proceeded into the kitchen, to a counter under a wall phone, while Ethan perched on the edge of an armchair in the living room.

      The apartment was sparsely furnished. One sofa, one armchair, a coffee table, and a television set. The dining area contained a small table and two chairs.

      On the television, the MGM lion roared. The sound was low, the roar soft.

      On the walls were several framed photographs: large sixteen-by-twenty-inch, black-and-white art prints. Birds were the subject of every photo.

      Reynerd returned with a notepad and a pencil. “This do?”

      “Perfect,” Ethan said, accepting the items.

      Reynerd had a dispenser of Scotch tape, as well. “To fix the note on George’s door.” He put the tape on the coffee table.

      “Thanks,” Ethan said. “I like the photographs.”

      “Birds are all about being free,” Reynerd said.

      “I guess they are, aren’t they? The freedom of flight. You take the photos?”

      “No. I just collect.”

      In one of the prints, a flock of pigeons erupted in a swirl of feathered frenzy from a cobblestone plaza in front of a backdrop of old European buildings. In another, geese flew in formation across a somber sky.

      Indicating the black-and-white movie on the TV, Reynerd said, “I was just getting some snacks for the show. You mind … ?”

      “Huh? Oh, sure, I’m sorry, forget about me. I’ll jot this down and be gone.”

      In one of the pictures, the birds had flown directly at the photographer. The shot presented a close-up montage of overlapping wings, crying beaks, and beady black eyes.

      “Potato chips are gonna kill me one day,” Reynerd said as he returned to the kitchen.

      “With me it’s ice cream. More of it in my arteries than blood.”

      Ethan printed DEAR GEORGE in block letters, then paused as if in thought, and looked around the room.

      From the kitchen, Reynerd continued: “They say you can’t ever eat just one potato chip, but I can’t ever eat just one bag.”

      Two crows perched on an iron fence. A strop of sunlight laid a sharp edge on their beaks.

      White carpet as pristine as winter snow lay wall to wall. The furniture had been upholstered in a black fabric. From a distance, the Formica surface of the dinette table appeared to be black.

      Everything in the apartment was black-and-white.

      Ethan printed UNCLE HARRY IS DYING and then paused again, as if a simple message taxed his powers of composition.

      The movie music, though soft, had a melodramatic flair. A crime picture from the thirties or forties.

      Reynerd continued to rummage in kitchen cabinets.

      Here, two doves appeared to clash in midflight. There, an owl stared wide-eyed, as if shocked by what it saw.

      Outside, wind had returned to the day. A dice-rattle of rain drew Ethan’s attention to the window.

      From the kitchen came the distinctive rustle of a foil potato-chip bag.

      PLEASE CALL ME, Ethan printed.

      Returning to the living room, Reynerd said, “If you’ve got to eat chips, these are the worst because they’re higher in oil.”

      Ethan looked up and saw a bag of Hawaiian-style chips. Reynerd had inserted his right hand into the open bag.

      The way that the bag gloved the apple man’s hand struck Ethan as wrong. The guy might have been reaching in for some chips, of course; but an oddness of attitude, a tenseness in him, suggested otherwise.

      Stopping beside the sofa, not six feet away, Reynerd said, “You work for the Face, don’t you?”

      At a disadvantage in the armchair, Ethan pretended confusion. “For who?”

      When the hand came out of the bag, it held a gun.

      A licensed private investigator and certified bodyguard, Ethan had a permit to carry a concealed weapon. Except in the company of Channing Manheim, when he armed himself as a matter of routine, he seldom bothered to strap on his piece.

      Reynerd’s weapon was a 9-mm pistol.

      This morning, disturbed by the eye in the apple and by the wolfish grin that this man had revealed on the security tape, Ethan had put on his shoulder holster. He hadn’t expected to need a gun, not really, and in fact he’d felt a little silly for packing it without greater provocation. Now he thanked God that he was armed.

      “I don’t understand,” he said, trying to look equally bewildered and afraid.

      “I’ve seen your picture,” Reynerd told him.

      Ethan glanced toward the open door, the hallway beyond.

      “I don’t care who sees or hears,” Reynerd told him. “It’s all over anyhow, isn’t it?”

      “Listen, if my brother George did something to piss you off,” Ethan said, trying to buy a little time.

      Reynerd wasn’t selling. Even as Ethan dropped the notepad and reached for the 9-mm Glock under his jacket, the apple man shot him point-blank in the gut.

      For a moment, Ethan felt no pain, but only for a moment. He rocked back in the chair and gaped at the

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