All the Gin Joints by Martin Turnbull

Author:Martin Turnbull
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Martin Turnbull

20

Nell and Luke hid behind a sycamore across the street from 7711 Norton Avenue.

“You sure about this?”

He nodded. But was he? Yes and no. Kinda sorta. Ask him in five minutes and he might give a different answer.

She looked down at his fingers; he had twisted them into a Gordian knot. “I’m not convinced.”

“I don’t know what’s worse,” he confessed. “Thinking we could be related and not knowing, or confirming that I have a relation that nobody’s ever told me about.”

“Which is why we came up with this.” Nell pulled a sheet of legal paper from her purse. He knew she had scrawled 7711 Lexington Ave, West Hollywood in blue pencil only because she had told him. Light blue writing on yellow paper was invisible to him. If Avery Osterhaus suffered from tritanopia, he wouldn’t be able to see it either.

Luke interlaced his fingers against the back of his head. “It is kind of strange, what we’re doing. If you’d prefer to bail—”

“Are you kidding? I feel like Nancy Drew in The Mystery of the Weird Color Blindness That Only Two People in the World Have.” She tapped her cheek. “A kiss for good luck, please.”

He gave her a peck and, through the leaves on a low-hanging branch, he watched her cross the street. When Osterhaus answered his door, she held up the sheet of paper. He studied it for a moment, then shook his head.

Luke gripped the bark. Tritanopia was rare, but not unheard of.

“Just one of those things.” That’s what Luke’s mother had told him when he was nine and the oculist’s explanation had been double Dutch. And then one day at college he had wandered into the library’s medical section and his eye had fallen on a textbook: Conditions and Treatment of Diseases Afflicting the Human Eyeball. He’d flipped to the T section, where he had read that tritanopia was hereditary. It wasn’t just one of those things at all. But inherited from whom? He’d never been brave enough to ask.

Nell appeared by his side. “Bingo.”

“What did he say?”

“And I quote: ‘I’ve got this peculiar eye condition that prevents me from seeing colors the way normal people do.’ He doesn’t have your build. You’re the thick-set type, whereas he’s tall and reedy. But the two of you have the same facial features, and a weird eye condition.”

Luke turned away from her. Reality was slapping him in the face, and it was easier to absorb the blows if he didn’t have to witness the conviction that filled her eyes.

“Simon must have had his reasons,” she said, taking care to soften her voice. “Did you tell him your name? And by that, I mean your actual name?” The conviction had mutated into provocation. “It isn’t Luke Vail, is it?”

Oh, jeez. Oh, crap. This wasn’t how he’d planned to tell her. Not that he’d formulated a solid strategy. If he had, it would’ve involved a sunset and a picnic blanket—or Don the Beachcomber’s Coconut Rum Swizzles at the very least.

“How did you know?”

“That time you showed me your room, you threw your wallet on the bed.

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