Read Dark Blonde for Free Online

dark hazel now, reflecting gold from the car’s dash. If I’d ever known what to say to a goddess, I’d forgotten. She said it for me:
    “If I hadn’t just hired you…”
    The window slid up, easing my hand out. She didn’t look back as the car drifted out into the street, the glowing tail lights sinking into the night, leaving me to wonder just what, just exactly what would be if she hadn’t just hired me, and knowing that the most meaningful thing to say to a goddess would always begin with “if.”
     

 
Chapter 4
     
    The next afternoon I drove to Gail Gorovoy’s bungalow, a squat stucco house at the end of a long walkway, tucked between two courtyard apartments on Englewood at Ashland Avenue. The apartments were shabby but the house looked well maintained except for overgrown junipers that hid the Spanish charm. If the address hadn’t been on a lamppost near the walk’s entrance, I might still be looking.
    A bright blue tricycle was overturned in the middle of the yard with some toy dishes arranged for a tea party next to it. Julia hadn’t said anything about kids. Maybe they were from the courtyard apartments next door, or maybe Gail was into babysitting.
    Dead plants in massive glazed pots stood sentry at the door. Cigarette butts stuck out of the dirt in them, a few with faded traces of lipstick. The curtained door was one of those all glass panel jobs that sat well into a curved frame. When I stuck the key in the lock and turned the doorknob, also glass, the sheers inside fluttered a bulge through the window panel next to my hand. The glass had been broken out and the door was unlocked. I checked behind me and walked to each end of the sheltered porch.
    My scar was a searing flame with needles in it. I stopped and backed away, looking around the perimeter of the place. The side yards were empty. I stopped and listened. Nothing. I felt like asking Dad if this was a false alarm, because my scar sometimes acted up without his warning. I whispered his name, asking if the place was empty. Nothing.
    Then I stepped inside the house and met a stale trace of marijuana mixed with cheap perfume. The air hung dead like the house had been shut up for a year. Two lonely coat hangers and some dust bunnies inside the entryway cloak closet. Fingers of light through the front door fell across objects littering the floor.
    I groped to the right where the light switch should be and flipped two switches. Lights went on in the dining room to the right. Furniture had been upturned, drawers sat emptied in piles in the living room floor, books scattered to the walls. The place had been ransacked. In the bedrooms the mattress had been turned off the bed and torn lengthwise. Bureau drawers were heaped on the box springs. Except for a few pairs of shoes, some white cotton socks and a black garter belt, no clothes. The Goddess’s sister had taken enough clothes for a trip to Europe. The bathroom scene was similar: medicine cabinet door open, sink full of bottles with their caps off and contents dumped. The kitchen was a similar candidate for “before pictures” to Good Housekeeping.
    Be extremely careful. Pull your weapon and go slow!
     
    Dad’s warning. Someone must be in the house.
    I moved through the kitchen to a door that looked like it led out to the back yard. I say looked like because when I reached for the knob a movement came from my left just behind the refrigerator. Dimly at the edge of my vision I saw a blurred arm connected to a fist and whatever was at the end of that fist kicked me full on the back of my brain, just as I heard Dad say Watch out! Too late, Pop. I sailed through a pitch-black tunnel with a fiery frame that exploded into nothingness.
    Shrill hollers of a child came from somewhere beyond the darkness, somewhere behind me in the blinding light, somewhere behind the room that was too small for my head. The wailing became persistent. Traffic sounds drifted around the voice and the drone of an airplane