Crimes of Passion by Jeff Gelb

Author:Jeff Gelb [Gelb, Jeff]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-936535-18-7
Publisher: Jabberwocky Literary Agency, Inc.
Published: 2011-03-14T16:00:00+00:00

NECROS

Brian Lumley

I

An old woman in a faded blue frock and black head-square paused in the shade of Mario’s awning and nodded good day. She smiled a gap-toothed smile. A bulky, slouch-shouldered youth in jeans and a stained yellow T-shirt—a slope-headed idiot, probably her grandson—held her hand, drooling vacantly and fidgeting beside her.

Mario nodded good-naturedly, smiled, wrapped a piece of stale fucaccia in greaseproof paper, and came from behind the bar to give it to her. She clasped his hand, thanked him, turned to go.

Her attention was suddenly arrested by something she saw across the road. She started, cursed vividly, harshly, and despite my meagre knowledge of Italian I picked up something of the hatred in her tone. “Devil’s spawn!” She said it again. “Dog! Swine!” She pointed a shaking hand and finger, said yet again: “Devil’s spawn!” before making the two-fingered, double-handed stabbing sign with which the Italians ward off evil. To do this it was first necessary that shedrop her salted bread, which the idiot youth at once snatched up.

Then, still mouthing low, guttural imprecations, dragging the shuffling, fucaccia-munching cretin behind her, she hurried off along the street and disappeared into an alley. One word that she had repeated over and over again stayed in my mind: “Necros! Necros!” Though the word was new to me, I took it for a curse word. The accent she put on it had been poisonous.

I sipped at my Negroni, remained seated at the small circular table beneath Mario’s awning, and stared at the object of the crone’s distaste. It was a motorcar, a white convertible Rover and this year’s model, inching slowly forward in a stream of holiday traffic. And it was worth looking at it only for the girl behind the wheel. The little man in the floppy white hat beside her—well, he was something else, too. But she was—just something else.

I caught just a glimpse, sufficient to feel stunned. That was good. I had thought it was something I could never know again: that feeling a man gets looking at a beautiful girl. Not after Linda. And yet—

She was young, say twenty-four or -five, some three or four years my junior. She sat tall at the wheel, slim, raven haired under a white, wide-brimmed summer hat that just missed matching that of her companion, with a complexion cool and creamy enough to pour over peaches. I stood up—yes, to get a better look—and right then the traffic came to a momentary standstill. At that moment, too, she turned her head and looked at me. And if the profile had stunned me … well, the full frontal knocked me dead. The girl was simply, classically, beautiful.

Her eyes were of a dark green but very bright, slightly tilted and perfectly oval under straight, thin brows. Her cheeks were high, her lips a red Cupid’s bow, her neck long and white against the glowing yellow of her blouse. And her smile—

—Oh, yes, she smiled.

Her glance, at first cool, became curious in a moment, then a little angry, until finally, seeing my confusion—that smile.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.