Big Machine by Victor LaValle

Author:Victor LaValle [LaValle Victor]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 978-0-385-53041-5
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2009-09-12T16:00:00+00:00

THE CAB LET ME OFF on the corner of 35th and San Pablo Avenue, but instead of using the front entrance of the hotel, going through the lobby, I went around back. Seeing that homeless boy Martin, under Solomon Clay’s influence made me a little suspicious of every vagabond I passed. Mr. Clay might’ve pushed the boy forward, but it was Martin who’d carried that explosive bag. He’d played a willing part. So now even a crowd of smokers in front of By the Bay might be more soldiers in Solomon Clay’s indigent army. Using the service entrance seemed safer.

I went one block over, and was amazed by the new quiet. On San Pablo Avenue you heard the jabber of a hundred cars as they moved along the street, but the loudest sound on Chestnut Street was the wind thumping against the old houses across the road. It was so hushed that I even heard the window blinds snapping in one of the hotel rooms above me.

Looking up, I saw that loud old blind swinging out through one room’s open window like a big gray flag. Those blinds probably hadn’t been white in years. I didn’t like seeing it slipping past the frame, though. What if someone tripped and went right through the opening? I looked at the ground, expecting to see a suicide, because, you know, this day hadn’t yet been morbid enough. But I found nothing.

The blind snapped again up there. Once, twice.

It wasn’t until I reached the back parking lot that I realized the sound of the blind had stopped. I looked up just because it made me feel better to know the window was safely shut. The sun flashed in my eyes. I point this out to admit I was squinting, not a perfect witness, in other words. But I still know what I saw: the big gray shape had slipped out of the window. It pressed against the brick wall of the hotel. But, rather than being carried off with the wind, the big gray shroud moved up.

It climbed.

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