The Murder, Ethan Canter [debian ebook reader .txt] 📗

his body and unclogs his mind, clears the din of voices echoing in his head. The refuse of other people’s words, of other people – so unhelpful. Like a disease, he thinks, they pass their feeble thoughts around – like dirty hands, like uncovered mouths. So unhelpful – a little plague of pedants.
He stumbles. His head spins. The evening city lights twirl and bob. He reaches out to grab at something. He falls against a shop window. His ears ring. But the cool glass feels good against his hot forehead. He leans into it. Through the glass, distorted by the rain, he sees books – one of them is hers. He swallows and clenches his jaw. He drags himself along the window to the door, his breathing shallow and fast. He shuts his eyes, hard, and making a fist tries to regain his balance. He pushes through the door and stumbles into the shop. The fluorescent lighting punches at his eyes, he feels a tug of pain all the way to the back of his head.
In front of the counter he sees her book on display. He stumbles towards it. The woman behind the counter – her long hair graying, glasses on a string around her neck – says something. He ignores her. He picks up the book. The woman says something again. He doesn’t hear her. He opens the book and reads. The woman says something again, now more forceful and standing in front of him. The book begins to slip from his fingers. His stomach curdles. He steps back. Then stumbling forwards again he drops the book onto the pile with the others. He catches himself with his hands. He looks down at the tens of copies of the book. A sudden and violent convulsion erupts in his gut and he vomits onto the display. He staggers back and to the side. His throat and nose burn. Another convulsion seizes him and he vomits onto the floor, splattering the woman’s shoes and ankles. She backs against the counter, her hand over her mouth, on the verge of being sick herself. He looks at the books all covered with pink-yellow vomit. He wipes his mouth with the back of his coat sleeve. He turns to leave. A slight grin pulls at his eyes as he stumbles out of the shop.

11
In the all-night diner across the street from her building, the newspaper folded under his coat beside him, he sits with his shoulders hunched at a booth by the window. The clock on the wall slowly ticktocks in the quiet distance. The waitress is in the kitchen, with the cook – through the order window he sees their leathery faces, eating bowls of rice and boiled chicken, talking Chinese. At the counter an old man sits in front of his coffee and half-eaten piece of pie. Shaking. Alone. Deserted. Waiting for the morning to come. Hiding from the nightmares that await him in his one-room apartment. Silently cursing all the things he’s done. Near the door four women sit together at a booth, drinking soda pop with straws, smoking cigarette after cigarette, chirping and gossiping and occasionally laughing out loud.
Outside the streets are dark. Trees and shrubs shimmer and shake from the odd gust of wind, but the rain has passed. Across the street, in a strong and sturdy brick building, her seventh-floor apartment window is still lit. The waitress does a round of refilling drinks. The four women take no notice of her as she places fresh bottles on their table. The old man exchanges some small talk with her as he does every night, and then sinks back into his private desolation.
Outside a taxi passes. A streetlight goes out. He looks up at her window and the light there too has gone out.
In the dark glass of the window he sees his reflection. He remembers photographs of a boy – so impossible to understand that this is the man that boy has grown into. But no more possible to think that this is the man that emerged out of that boy. Something changed. Some drastic moment occurred. Some threshold was reached, and passed through, and the boy was left behind. That boy would not be sitting here, he thinks. That boy would not do what I have done – would not do what I am doing. Where has he gone? And who was he anyway? His face looks soft in the glass – his features blend one to the next, signs of age and pain lost to the smoothed-over lack of detail in the window’s reflection – just a face, just an image – nearly just an idea of himself. Myself, he thinks. And who am I, what am I, anyway?
The bell above the door rings. Out of the corner of his eye he sees uniforms. He picks up his cup and drinking steals a look across the diner. Two police officers meander slowly in his direction, one of them looking back at the four women, the other inspecting him. His throat tightens. The women quiet their chatter. The waitress comes out of the kitchen all smiles and broken English – but her English was fine before, he remembers. Unable to swallow, he lets the lukewarm coffee slip from his mouth back into the cup, and putting it down on the table again, hides his shaking hands. He looks out the window, trying to look bored or distracted. Her light is still out. She must be asleep by now, he thinks. In the glass he sees, reflected, the two officers taking seats at the counter. The waitress serves them coffee and pie – smiling, bowing, playing Chinese like a bad movie. He swallows and tries to control his breathing. If I leave now, he thinks – no, it’s too soon. His eyes twitch. He watches the officers in the window. They’re harassing the waitress about the coffee, making her brew a fresh pot. The officer on the right, the bigger of the two, lights a cigarette and pointing at the four women in the booth by the door says something to his partner. They chuckle cruelly. The fat officer adjusts his belt, still staring at the women. The other officer, thin and insect-like, stares at the glass pie-fridge on the wall in front of him. The back of it’s mirrored. But it’s not the pies that interest the officer.
In the window he too sees the pie-fridge, and its mirrored interior, and the officer’s face – and then his eyes. He looks away, out into the dead street. But it’s too late. The insect turns slowly on his swivel-stool. He can feel the officer’s eyes searching him. He swallows, but the nervous lump in his throat won’t move. He feels his heart pounding. Looking down he sees his shirt tremor from his racing pulse. “Wet night, huh?” the insect says. He pretends not to hear, pretends he doesn’t know the officer’s speaking to him. “Hey, I’m talking to you,” the officer says. There’s no escape. He turns his head slowly. The insect’s half on, half off his seat, his feet planted on the floor, his arms crossed, his inspecting little eyes staring him down. His fat partner turns and joins in the stare. The insect’s eyes fall to his coat bundled on the seat beside him. The fat officer keeps watch on his eyes. He needs to say something – something to distract them. But the lump in his throat won’t move. And then it’s too late – he’s waited too long. “So what kind of business you in?” the insect says, sliding off his seat, letting his hands come to rest on his belt and taking a step towards him.
The sound of a porcelain cup breaking against the hard tiled floor turns everyone’s head. Following the cup, the old man slips off his stool, his forehead knocking against the counter on the way down, his legs getting caught in the metal footrest, his body bending and snapping at the hip. His shoulders hit the floor, his arms outstretched, his head jerking back. Half on the floor, nearly hung upside-down by his caught legs, blood beginning to ooze from the gash on his forehead, the old man fights for breath, wheezing, his whole body spasming, his tongue blue and bloated, looking like a huge worm trying to crawl out of his mouth.
The waitress screams and drops the fresh pot of coffee – the boiling liquid sprays her bare legs and soaks the fabric of the insect’s pants, burning both of them. The waitress stumbles backwards and falls to the floor, grabbing at her scalded ankles. The insect curses and brushes at his pants. The table of four women shriek nearly in unison. The fat officer moves to the old man whose tongue’s swollen so much he can’t breathe – his eyes look like they’re going to push out of his head. “Call a goddamn ambulance,” the fat officer shouts at the insect, shoving his jacket under the old man to prop him up and trying to pry his mouth open so he can breathe.
The insect hurries to the phone behind the counter, slamming against the cook who’s getting a bowl of ice for the waitress’s ankles. The four women gather their purses and packages of cigarettes and rush out the door. He takes their cue – grabbing his coat and the newspaper under it, he holds the bundle against his chest and makes for the door.

12
The women’s voices and the clickclacking of their high heels echo down the empty street.
He looks up. Her light is still out. She’s certainly asleep, perhaps even dreaming. He puts on his coat, still damp from the rain, and tucks the newspaper under his arm. A siren starts up in the distance. He crosses the dark street towards her building.
At the front entrance he presses her buzzer, then waits. He presses it again, and again, and until he hears her pick up the receiver. She doesn’t say anything – it’s late, she was asleep, she’s not expecting him.
“It’s me,” he says quietly, his mouth close to the wall-mounted microphone. There’s no reply, but he can hear her breathing. “It’s me, please.” He thinks of what to say. “I don’t know where else to go.” Silence. “I can’t go home,” he says, his tone serious and grave. “I’ve been out all night. I’m cold.” He pauses, dramatically. “I’m scared.” Silence again. Then the sound of the door-lock being released.
The elevator opens on the seventh floor. He steps out. The corridor’s empty and silent. The elevator starts to close but he presses the safety bar and it opens again. He takes the newspaper and wedges it into the elevator, pushing the safety bar in, making the door stay open.
She lights a cigarette and stands by the open balcony doors, a glass of wine in her hand. “Is it for money?” she asks.
“What?” he says.
“These people who’re after you,” she says, “is it for money?”
“No,” he says, suddenly irritated.
“Have you talked to the police?” she says – almost tauntingly, he thinks – staring out the balcony doors, the city in the background glittering all the way to the horizon.
“No,” he says, not hiding his agitation. “Look, it really doesn’t matter.”
“Doesn’t matter?” she says, turning to look at him. “Then what the hell are you doing here if it doesn’t matter?”
“I don’t want to argue,” he says condescendingly.
“Argue?” she says, becoming agitated. “You don’t want to argue!” raising her voice. “It’s three in the morning – you begged me to let you in – you said you’re scared, that you can’t go home – and now you tell me it doesn’t matter!” She stares at him, her face flushed. “What the hell’s going on?”
He says nothing.
She rubs