The Day After Tomorrow_ A Novel - Allan Folsom [1]
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Chapter 80
Chapter 81
Chapter 82
Chapter 83
Chapter 84
Chapter 85
Chapter 86
Chapter 87
Chapter 88
Chapter 89
Chapter 90
Chapter 91
Chapter 92
Chapter 93
Chapter 94
Chapter 95
Chapter 96
Chapter 97
Chapter 98
Chapter 99
Chapter 100
Chapter 101
Chapter 102
Chapter 103
Chapter 104
Chapter 105
Chapter 106
Chapter 107
Chapter 108
Chapter 109
Chapter 110
Chapter 111
Chapter 112
Chapter 113
Chapter 114
Chapter 115
Chapter 116
Chapter 117
Chapter 118
Chapter 119
Chapter 120
Chapter 121
Chapter 122
Chapter 123
Chapter 124
Chapter 125
Chapter 126
Chapter 127
Chapter 128
Chapter 129
Chapter 130
Chapter 131
Chapter 132
Chapter 133
Chapter 134
Chapter 135
Chapter 136
Chapter 137
Chapter 138
Chapter 139
Chapter 140
Chapter 141
Chapter 142
Chapter 143
Chapter 144
Chapter 145
Chapter 146
Chapter 147
Chapter 148
Chapter 149
Chapter 150
Chapter 151
Chapter 152
Chapter 153
Chapter 154
Chapter 155
Chapter 156
Chapter 157
Chapter 158
Chapter 159
Acknowledgments
A Preview of Day of Confession
For Karen...
1
* * *
Paris, Monday, October 3.
5:40 P.M.
Brasserie Stella, the rue St.-Antoine.
PAUL OSBORN sat alone among the smoky bustle of the after-work crowd, staring into a glass of red wine. He was tired and hurt and confused. For no particular reason he looked up. When he did, his breath left him with a jolt. Across the room sat the man who murdered his father. That it could be he was inconceivable. But there was no doubt. None. It was a face forever stamped in his memory. The deepset eyes, the square jaw, the ears that stuck out almost at right angles, the jagged scar under the left eye that worked its way sharply down across the cheekbone toward the upper lip. The scar was less distinct now but it was there just the same. Like Osborn, he was alone. A cigarette was in his right hand and his left was curled around the rim of a coffee cup, his concentration on a newspaper at his elbow. He had to be at least fifty, maybe more.
From where Osborn sat, it was hard to tell his height. Maybe five foot eight or nine. He was stocky. Probably a hundred and eighty pounds. His neck was thick and his body looked hard. His complexion pale, his hair was short and curly, black, speckled with gray. Stamping out his cigarette, the man lit another, glancing Osborn’s way as he did. Then, putting out the match, he went back to his paper.
Osborn felt his heart skip a beat and the blood start to rise in his veins. Suddenly it was Boston and 1966 again. He was barely ten and he and his father were walking down the street. It was an afternoon in early spring, sunny but still cold. His father, dressed in a business suit, had left his office early to meet his son at the Park Street subway station. From there they crossed a corner of the Common and turned down Winter Street in a flurry of shoppers. They were going to a sale at Grogin’s Sporting Goods. The boy had saved all winter for a new baseball mitt, a first baseman’s glove. A Trapper model. His father had promised to match his savings dollar for dollar. Together they had thirty-two dollars. They were in sight of the store, and his father was smiling, when the man with the scar and the square jaw struck. He stepped out of the crowd and shoved a butcher knife into his father’s stomach. As he did, he glanced over and saw the boy, who had no idea what was happening. In that instant their eyes met. Then the man moved on and his father crumpled to the pavement.
He could still feel the moment, standing so terribly alone on the sidewalk, strangers massing to look, his father staring up at him, helpless, uncomprehending, blood beginning to seep through fingers that had instinctively sought to pull the weapon out but had, instead, died there.
Twenty-eight years later and a continent away