by James Swain
“Jack, that woman is staring at us,” Rose said.
I lifted my eyes from the pebble walkway. Behind a tombstone twenty feet away stood a Hispanic woman holding a bouquet of wilted flowers. She wore a black dress, a black hat, and sunglasses, and she appeared to be in mourning. I wondered if she'd known one of the victims, or perhaps was a relative. She glanced furtively at my wife and daughter, then turned and abruptly walked away, her heels clacking noisily.
“How rude,” my wife said.
“Maybe it was one of those pesky reporters in disguise,” my daughter said.
“Maybe so,” I said.
We continued our walk. I'd been contacted by plenty of reporters in the past week, all of whom wanted to tell my story. I'd also heard from Bobby Russo, who'd hinted that an unnamed job with the police department was waiting for me, should I choose to return. I'd become everyone's favorite guy, not that I particularly cared. These same people had helped Skell walk out of prison, and I wanted nothing to do with them.
Reaching the parking lot, I found Buster asleep on the driver's seat of my car. I let him out, and he jumped on me, his tail wagging furiously.
“Daddy, someone left you something,” my daughter said.
Tucked beneath the windshield wipers were a white envelope and a single wilted flower. I pulled them both free and looked for a trash bin.
“Aren't you going to open the envelope?” my daughter asked.
“No,” I said.
“But it might be something important.”
I tossed the envelope to her.
“Have at it,” I said.
Jessie tore open the envelope and removed a cassette tape.
“I thought these things were obsolete,” my daughter said.
Tape cassettes were obsolete, except in my car. Once the engine was started, I slipped the cassette into the tape player, and the three of us sat and listened. At first, nothing but crackling static came out of the speakers. Then we heard the blast of a harmonica, followed by Mick Jagger's young, raw voice. Then the music started.
“What the heck is this?” my daughter asked.
An invisible knife twisted in my gut. As I gazed over endless rows of tombstones that graced the landscape, I searched for the Hispanic woman dressed in black, knowing that I hadn't seen a woman at all but an old enemy who was trying to track me down.
It was the opening lyrics to “Midnight Rambler.”
The live version.
FB2 document info
Document ID: fbd-4ae0e8-904d-2547-1b97-c71b-f6e1-c00c75
Document version: 1
Document creation date: 30.10.2013
Created using: calibre 0.9.36, Fiction Book Designer, FictionBook Editor Release 2.6.6 software
Document authors :
James Swain
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