Great Wash, The by Kersh Gerald

Author:Kersh, Gerald [Kersh, Gerald]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Novel, Sci-fi, Fantasy, Fiction
Publisher: Valancourt Books
Published: 2015-03-22T07:00:00+00:00

“I’ll trouble you for the use of your phone again, if I may, Mr. Syd,” said Halfacre. To Hobson he said: “That’s all for now, you. Go about your business, and mind nobody steals your bicycle”—and went back to the telephone.

It was like a film run backwards: Hobson reassembled and rearticulated himself in a couple of seconds, and left with a ponderous “Good-evening, gentlemen” as if it were he who had sent the Chief Inspector about his business.

But we learned, later, that someone had stolen his bicycle—or rather, hidden it in the hen-house just for a lark. A pink-haired hoyden of bad reputation was accused of having done this thing, but she had an alibi—it was proven that she was in solitary confinement in her bedroom at that time, on suspicion of petty larceny in the matter of plum jam in her own mother’s house, evidence of which was discovered in her ears. So that case fell through. I believe Hobson hushed it up. Rest assured, however, it made folklore. Hobson’s blue shoulder was starred by a startled pullet. . . . Thus, he was made an Inspector, or something, because a hen ran off on his bicycle . . . A few years from now she will have laid a golden egg in his pocket. Anything for a good laugh at Law and Order. . . .

I wish this were a light-hearted tale; or, at least, that I could see it in long perspective. But I can’t. I am too close to it, so that it still troubles my dreams; and if I laugh sometimes in telling it, it is that I may not weep.

Mr. Syd had returned to the bar long before Chief Inspector Halfacre came back. Evening was closing in. Looking at the western corner of the sky, into the half-closed inflamed eye of the afternoon, I could see that the Black Hope had the better of it again and waited for the raising of a bloody half-moon. George Oaks said nothing, and I had nothing to say. We sat in the darkening dining-room until Halfacre came in.

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