Systems by W.T. Quick

Systems by W.T. Quick

Author:W.T. Quick [Quick, W.T.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00


Chapter Nine

I am not a nice man, Josh thought, as he sipped his coffee on the tiny balcony perched on the back of Dot Kelly’s apartment; he could hear her inside, clanking dishes and rattling silverware as she loaded the ancient Whirlpool dishwasher. He glanced at his watch; in another half hour she would be on her way to work, after a perfunctory peck on his cheek—he would smell her perfume and it would be, as always, a light dusting of rose—and he could get on with trying to figure out what to do next.

Down the hillside San Francisco was coming alive for the day; the Market Street Mall, stretching all the way from Castro to the Embarcadero, glittered in the dawn. He could feel the hump of Twin Peaks rising behind him, the sides of the big hill draped with condos packed as close as sardine crystals in a rocky can. He turned and stared; the towers looked sinister to him, a cluster of metal claws tearing at the sky. There had been a double murder up there recently, two kids ripped to pieces. The girl’s head had been carefully placed on the rock wall next to their ’tro, her blank eyes frozen on the city below.

Ugly thoughts. He turned back.

Carl Kelly’s blue terrycloth bathrobe fit him well; according to Kelly, they’d been of a size. He had a feeling he understood, on some level of feeling rather than knowledge, the shadowy underpinnings of her relationship with him. In how many other ways were he and Carl Kelly of a kind? He suspected quite a few.

That first night, after he’d kept his appointment with her at the FrisBowl, he’d slept on her sofa, but somehow, on the second night, after quite a few stiff Dewars on the rocks, he’d ended up in her bed—and had remained there since.

Not a nice man—no, not really. Julia had been dead for only a few months, and already he’d been unfaithful. But unfaithful to what, a flat, nagging voice mumbled in his skull. She’s (dead) not here anymore. How can you be unfaithful to a (corpse) memory?

He hated the flat voice, but he couldn’t silence it. There was rent of a kind being paid here and many ghosts to be laid to rest—hers and his both. He only wished he felt more guilt. Then he wondered why he wished that. He shook his head and drained the last of his coffee.

“Josh? I’m going now.”

“You have a good day, Dot. You want me to cook tonight?”

She came out on the balcony, already in her coat, her purse half open and hanging from her shoulder. “There’s stuff for spaghetti in the fridge, but if you want to call down to Mei Wah’s, I wouldn’t mind Chinese.”

He grinned. “Mu Shu pork? Spring rolls? Lemon chicken?”

“Sounds fine to me,” she said and bent over his shoulder. He offered his cheek and felt her lips brush his skin lightly. The dusty scent of roses—roses and dust—filled his nostrils.

“I’ll be home by five,” she said, and then she was gone.



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