Hazard and Somerset, Gregory Ashe [ebook reader with internet browser TXT] 📗

the right images, and figure out enough basic digital editing to combine them.

He sprinted toward the minivan. If he drove fast enough, and if he searched images on his phone at stoplights, he might be able to make it. Somers would probably laugh about how precise Hazard was being, but Somers—

Hazard forced himself to stop.

Somers had planned this game.

Somers knew him.

And Somers knew how literally he could take some things.

A prickling flush ran through Hazard’s chest. Somers had picked this place for a reason. And he had set the time limit for a reason. And, while Somers would no doubt enjoy lording it over Hazard if Hazard failed to solve the puzzle in time—Hazard could imagine Somers still bragging about it when they were in a nursing home together—Somers wasn’t a cheat, and he wouldn’t have imposed an arbitrary time limit that made it almost impossible for Hazard to succeed.

So, what was Hazard overlooking?

He heard his own words, hearing their literal meaning, and grinned. He jogged to the stairs and climbed to the top of the parking garage. Air whipped over the concrete, making him shiver as he reached the edge of the structure. He leaned out, looking south. This part of Wahredua was a mixture of old and new: the older construction was on large plots, with minimal effort made to conserve space because, back then, land in Wahredua hadn’t been at a premium. Twenty years ago, the spot where Hazard stood had been a sprawling grocery store that had eventually been bulldozed for redevelopment. The newer construction shot up vertically, like the movie theater and parking garage. To the south, he spotted a senior living facility, a 70s-era strip mall where he’d bought his first gay paperback, and a Jack in the Box.

Hazard looked east. The sun was already clear of the horizon, which probably meant it didn’t count as sunrise anymore, but Hazard had a guess that Somers wouldn’t care too much. Somers wanted Hazard to play the game; anything on top of that was gravy. East offered a long strip of new buildings, most of them apartments and condos, with the stumps of bars and liquor stores and a Chinese take-out place the only evidence of a previous generation. Hazard made a mental note to check the Chinese place; maybe the name had something to do with the sun.

He checked the north side of the structure, which overlooked a city park, scruffy with old flyers and plastic shopping bags that had gotten caught in the trees. Beyond that, the three-story edifice of Grand Rivere People’s Bank made Hazard remember standing in line while his mother waited to cash his father’s paycheck, sometimes Friday afternoons, sometimes first thing Monday mornings.

West, older style apartment buildings proliferated along the street, all of varying heights, all the same shades of brown and tan, all with tar-patched roofs. Taken in from above, they resembled a clump of fungus. Or maybe a cancerous growth. Hazard doubted the sunrise had anything to do with that.

He took the stairs two at a time, realizing that his time was running out. If he’d been wrong about Somers’s expectations, if he’d made the wrong choice and there wasn’t some clever twist on the demand that Somers had posed, then he wouldn’t have chance to correct his error.

But Hazard wasn’t wrong; he knew he wasn’t wrong.

At the bottom of the garage, he went east first, running down the block and ignoring the startled looks of men and women just starting their days. Skidding to a stop in front of the take-out restaurant, he looked for any clue about a sunrise: The Golden Wok, with a menu taped inside the window, and a 4’x4’ vinyl cling of a panda cooking something in the wok. No sunrise. Hazard sprinted back the way he had come.

“Watch out, asshole,” came a shout from behind him, but Hazard didn’t bother looking back.

His next try was the playground. Maybe they had something shaped like a sun or a sunrise. He wandered past the aging equipment: a jungle gym with rust streaking the supports; a merry-go-round with an enormous dent in the platform; a stainless steel slide, still bright as a mirror, the kind that as a child Hazard had been both fascinated by and terrified of, hot enough in the summer to burn the kids that dared to try it. The breeze shifted, and a flyer slapped against Hazard’s sneaker, wrapping around his foot. Hazard picked it up, flattened it, and saw LADY LUSCIOUS - DOUBLE D - THEY’RE ALL REAL BOYS and then a phone number printed in red three times. He folded it and tucked it in his back pocket for Somers.

He tried the bank, just a quick jog around the building, but the only thing in the window was a poster advertising a comically low APY for a savings account, and Hazard snorted and kept moving. He jogged back the other way, south now. He checked his watch. He had three minutes before Somers ate one of the quiches.

When he saw the sign for SUNSET SENIOR LIVING, he started grinning. He took a minute figuring out the right position, and then he snapped the picture. He sent it, and his phone buzzed a moment later.

There once was a man from Ur, he met a guy with fur, they had a good time, then he stepped out of line, and now he’s a real goner.

Hazard texted back: Another terrible poem. And a limerick. You can do better than that.

2 minutes.

2 minutes? Are you fucking kidding me? I can’t drive to the library in five minutes.

You figured it out! 1:43.

Hazard started running.

IV

APRIL 24

WEDNESDAY

8:19 AM

GASPING AND BLOWING, HAZARD stumbled to a stop in front of the library. He snapped a picture and sent it. Then he slumped forward, hands on knees, and tried to recover from sprinting. Under ordinary circumstances, it would have been easy to drive from the parking garage to the library in two minutes, but not in the middle