More Walls Broken by Tim Powers

Author:Tim Powers [Powers, Tim]
Language: eng
Format: epub

Out in front of the house, the driver’s side door of the van slowly swung open, and the interior light came on, and then after a few seconds the door closed and the light went out again.

Taysha pointed at the Buick as she stepped down from the kitchen doorway. She was still holding the rosary.

“That’s Dad’s car. You’ve been driving it?”

“Just one time, from the university. It smells like his old pipes.”

Blaine and Ainsworth tottered outside right behind her, carrying glasses, and Blaine crossed to the table, picked up the bottle and poured a generous slosh of bourbon into his. Ainsworth fidgeted impatiently beside him.

Taysha sat down in the chair next to Cobb, and the rosary rattled as she laid it on the table. “You’ve got cigarettes,” she said to him. “Bum one?”

Cobb pulled the pack of Camels from his shirt pocket and dug in his jeans for the lighter. She pulled a cigarette from the pack and took the lighter from him, and a moment later she was leaning back in her chair, exhaling a plume of smoke.

She glanced back toward the kitchen. “Is he going to show up?” she asked Allegra. “Lou,” she added, when Allegra gave her an alarmed look.

“Oh, him,” said Allegra. She had shuffled a few steps out across the patio, but kept glancing back at the house as if she might run back inside. “We’re divorced. Three years now. He’s in Oregon.”

“I can’t believe you married him! I told him to get lost after he had that big fight with Dad.”

“Oh, I nearly did, too,” sighed Allegra, “but Dad started it—he provoked him, picking on him about his biker tattoos, remember?”

Cobb was surprised to see that Allegra was apparently accepting his theory, and he wondered how much she had had to drink before they arrived.

Taysha nodded. “He wanted me to get one, too, and Dad wouldn’t stand for that.” She tapped ash from her cigarette and gave Allegra an inquiring look.

Cobb saw Allegra’s face redden. “I have Lucy,” she said, quietly but defiantly.

Taysha opened her mouth, then closed it. After a moment she went on, “But you left Dad alone in that house? Did you think he could manage by himself?”

“I have my own life!” protested Allegra. “We had a big fight about Lou. Dad said he was a bum, and I called Dad a has-been loser who couldn’t keep his wife. But it was true! And he drank!”

Taysha angrily pointed her cigarette at the drink in Allegra’s hand and was clearly about to make an obvious rejoinder, but the creak of a car door opening stopped her.

And then a windy whisper from the left said, “I did.”

Every head whipped around toward the Buick, and Taysha’s cigarette went flying; the passenger door was open now, and a filmy silhouette inside was visible only because it was moving. A glassy distortion at the bottom edge of the door frame implied a lowered leg, and then part of the roof seemed to ripple as the silhouette straightened up.

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.