The Four Corners of the Sky_ A Novel - Michael Malone [148]
On the floor lay a large, smashed framed group wedding photograph, glass slivers sticking into it, obscuring the faces.
There was no furniture in the room except for one tanned leather Deco armchair with an ottoman. Beside this chair was a round glass coffee table that also looked Deco.
Lying on the floor, wedged between the chair and the stereo, through which Otis Redding was pleading, “Please don’t make me stop now,” Annie saw a young well-built male body wearing nothing but pale blue boxer shorts and one white sock. It was the back of a young man who looked to be in perfect physical condition except for the fact that, judging from his contorted torso and stiffened limbs, he was dead. The rest of his clothes (shirt, pants, sports jacket) lay scattered about the otherwise bare floor like little throw rugs. As Annie leaned over his body, she smelt the agave fumes of tequila and saw a half-empty bottle of Cuervo 1800 in his rigid hand.
Then she screamed, as suddenly the man’s other arm flung out, hitting her back and knocking her down on top of him. Pressed against his breastbone, Annie could now see that the body was alive, the chest had a heart in it that was beating, although nothing else moved, not a tremble of the dark-bronze curls. As she tried to lift herself away, the arm stiffened rigidly.
Then the body turned over. The thick long eyelashes flickered. It was Daniel Hart. His arms moved tightly, warmly, around her and unexpectedly he kissed her. The kiss took her breath away, soft, strong, unending until she pulled back and elbowed him in the stomach.
Slowly his mouth spasmed, forming the sounds ooofff and then drinnn..., which Annie took to mean an effort at the word drink. Pulling herself up, she made her way along a hallway whose walls had bright-painted wood crèches and skeletons on them, past two bedrooms (one empty, one with nothing in it but a large bright blue wooden bed, its head and foot hand painted with what looked like Mexican saints).
In the colorfully tiled kitchen, someone appeared to have started preparations for some complicated Asian dish, then lost heart and quit. There were grocery bags and wooden cooking utensils everywhere, copper pans stacked by the stove.
Filling a coffee mug with water, she brought it back to the living room. The body hadn’t moved. As she lifted Hart’s head, his lashes quivered, then his eyes opened, blue as Miami neon, Deco blue, the blue of the sea in Annie’s dream. She held up the mug to his lips.
“‘Sorry, no silver cup,’” she said as she tilted the water into his mouth.
He spluttered spitting, pushing the mug aside. In a rusted croak, he growled at her, “It’s ‘Sorry, no silver cups.’ Not ‘cup.’ ‘Cups.’ You don’t look like John Wayne.”
Annie was taken aback but replied, “You don’t look like Claire Trevor either.” Sam had mentioned on the phone that this Sergeant Hart had made some comment about his familiarity with old movies. He certainly appeared to know her dad’s old quote from Stagecoach. It might have made him interesting if he hadn’t so obviously been a hopeless drunk, an emotional wreck, and a derelict housekeeper.
She offered him more water, but he shook his head with a groan, twisting his face as he slowly unbent one rigid leg. “Listen, Duke,” he grumbled, grabbing the mug and pouring the water on his head, “Water’s not a drink.”
“Take it or leave it,” she told him exasperated. “I need some information from you about my father.”
“Get in line.” He rubbed the water in his hair over his face and chest. Yanking his jaw from side to side, apparently to see if it still worked, he lurched to his feet with moans that sounded much like the wailing lamentations of Otis Redding, now singing “Mr. Pitiful” in the background.
He stumbled, his hand on Annie’s shoulder to steady himself. “Pardon me,” he said. He hobbled down the hall into his kitchen, returning