The Disappearing Body
Page 39
Victor, Elaine, and Joshua rode the Barkley ferry to Long Meadow. By midmorning, the lanes on the river were full of traffic and the docks of Long Meadow were full of officials from the Department of Investigations, the Department of State, and the local police. When the ferry landed at its dock, Victor, Elaine, and Joshua drove onto the snowy road that wound up to Palisades Parkway. They motored slowly, occasionally swerving about on the slippery road. But as Joshua claimed, he was a good driver. He kept them on the road and managed to make it as far as Promontory Peak. Joshua parked the car under an old oak, and together Victor, Elaine, and Joshua walked out to the overlook. By noon, the air was so warm and the sun so bright the three of them removed their scarves and gloves and opened their coats as they looked out over the icy river onto the grid of the City—its shoreline, its docks, its concrete towers—white with snow. For that brief moment, it all looked so benign to Victor. For that brief moment, the island city with all its snow and ice and smokestacks pumping looked like a giant storm cloud dissolving right before his eyes.
ALSO BY DAVID GRAND
Louse
PUBLISHED BY NAN A. TALESE
AN IMPRINT OF DOUBLEDAY
a division of Random House, Inc.
1540 Broadway, New York, New York 10036
DOUBLEDAY is a trademark of Doubleday, a division of Random House, Inc.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Grand, David, 1968–
The disappearing body: a novel / David Grand.
p. cm.
1. Drug traffic—Fiction. 2. Heroin habit—Fiction. 3. Anti-communist movements—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3557.R247 D5 2001
813'.54—dc21 2001044292
Copyright © 2001 by David Grand
All Rights Reserved.
March 2002
Title page illustration by Judy Lanfredi
eISBN: 978-0-385-50488-1
v3.0