Life Goes Sleeping by Reed Farrel Coleman

Author:Reed Farrel Coleman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2010-04-19T21:08:00+00:00

Philosophy Tree

The sign was backlit plastic with red lettering against a rectangular field of glowing flourescent white. Each plastic letter was skewered on the curved blade of an equally plastic broad blue sword. Beneath the shish kebabed logo, the company's motto appeared in italicized blue lettering surrounded by plastic quotation marks: "Worldwide and Worldly-wise."

Parked on the silent, black street, just below the Blue Sabre sign, sat a driverless, passengerless Chrysler painted in like colors. The building's life-drained brown brick stood in stark contrast to both car and sign. From across the way I watched heads of shadows dancing behind softly smoked glass on the building's second floor. Occasionally, I looked away from the shadow heads to follow the glide to earth of landing lights in my sideview mirror. I'd lose track of the lights as they'd cross the fence along Rockaway Boulevard. The tarmac lay just beyond the fence.

I considered coincidence while sitting in my car watching the reflection of lights landing and the blur of shadows dancing. It wasn't impossible that the Micki Korin, David Ben Avraam, Kiev Car Service triangle was an innocent triad of chance. No, it wasn't impossible; it wasn't likely either. The man with the dimestore English accent and silenced rifle was perfectly correct. I was close to Brodsky, very close. I stopped being a spectator and drove off to find a phone.

I sank a quarter down the vertical slot and punched up the eleven digits that should've given me The Rusty Scupper. I got my quarter back instead. A computer generated woman, in a voice as flat as Nebraska and as even as the number two, politely panhandled for more change than I could manage. I hung up in the middle of her second courteous request. I thought about reversing the charges or charging the call to my home number. I stopped thinking and decided to call the second number I had in mind. It was a call I could afford to make with the cash on hand.

I fed the slot again and pushed the seven button code of Miss Make-Believe Micki. I got the computer woman and my quarter back once more, but this time I rewarded her civility. She thanked me. I cradled the receiver between my nervous left ear and shoulder. My mind raced with the first ring. What would I say? She picked up on the second ring and saved me from answering any tough questions.

"Dylan?" her voice was shaking. "Dylan?" she coughed.

"Yes."

"Please," she choked on too much air and saliva, "please hurry!"

The line clicked, then hushed, and then teased me with a dial tone. I didn't call back.

I put my car on auto-pilot, cruising around her block searching for anything which remotely resembled a legal parking space. No shot. In Brooklyn Heights parking spots only open up when there's a death in the neighborhood. And tonight, the community's population hadn't dropped. Not yet, anyway. After my second orbit I decided to stop circling the wagon train and to double-park my pony.

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