Read Slow Sculpture for Free Online

sink into that welter of approaching bullet, rain-damped torsos,
why do I want to be dead?
So he hung motionless for a moment between disturbance and diversion. He thought of following O’Banion into the parlor. He thought of sinking back into his panic, facing it, fighting it. But he wasn’t ready to fight, not yet, and he didn’t want to run … and he couldn’t stay like this. It was like not breathing. Anyone can stop breathing, but not for long.
    “Mr. Halvorsen?”
    Soft-footed, soft-voiced, timidly peering about her to be sure she was not intruding, Miss Schmidt came in. Halvorsen could have hugged her. “Come in, come in!” he cried warmly.
    The half-alive smile brightened like fanned embers at his tone. “Good afternoon, Mr. Halvorsen. I was looking, that is, wondering, you know, if Mr. Bittelman was back yet, and I thought perhaps that …” She wet her lips and apparently thought it was worth another try. “I wanted to see him about—I mean to say, ask him if he—about something.” She exhaled, took a breath, and would surely have come out with more of the same, but Halvorsen broke in.
    “No, not yet. Sure picked a miserable day for a joy-ride.”
    “It doesn’t seem to matter to the Bittelmans. Every fourth week, like clockwork.” She suddenly uttered a soft little bleat of a laugh. “I’m sure I don’t mean clockwork, Mr. Halvorsen, I mean, four weeks.”
    He laughed politely, for her sake. “I know what you mean.” Hesaw her drop her eyes to her kneading hands, divined that her next movement would be toward the door. He felt he couldn’t bear that, not just now. “How about—uh—a cup of tea or something. Sandwich. I was just going to—” He rose.
    She went pink and smiled again. “Why, I—”
    There was a short, sibilant sound in the doorway, a sniff, a small snort of anger. Mary Haunt stood there glowering. Miss Schmidt said, faintly, “No, no thank you, I’d better, I mean, just go and … I only wanted to see if Mr. Bittelman was—” She faded out altogether and tiptoed apologetically to the door. Mary Haunt swung her shoulders but did not move her feet. Miss Schmidt slid out and escaped past her.
    Halvorsen found himself standing, half angry, half foolish. His own last words echoed in his mind: “Sandwich. I was just going to—” and he let them push him to the other end of the kitchen. He was furious, but why? Nothing had happened; a lot had happened. He would have liked to rear back on his hind legs and blast her for persecuting a little defenseless rabbit like Miss Schmidt; yet what had she actually done? Couldn’t she say with absolute truth, “Why, I never said a word to her!”? He felt ineffectual, unmanned; and the picture of the flimsy gun flickered inside his eyelids and shocked him. He trembled, pulled himself together, painfully aware of the bright angry eyes watching his back from the doorway. He fumbled into the breadbox and took out half a loaf of Bitty’s magnificent home-baked bread. He took down the breadboard and got a knife from the drawer, and began to saw. Behind him he heard a sharp slap as Mary Haunt tossed her magazine on the table beside the coffeepot, and then he was conscious of her at his elbow. If she had said one word, she would have faced a blaze of anger out of all proportion to anything that had happened. But she didn’t, and didn’t: she simply stood there and watched him. He finished cutting the first slice, started on the second. He almost swung to face her but checked the motion, whereupon the knife bit into the first joint of his thumb. He closed his eyes, finished cutting the bread, and turned away to the refrigerator. He opened it and then bent over the shelves, holding his cut thumb in his other hand.
    “What do you think you’re doing?” asked the girl.
    “What’s it look like?” he growled. His cut suddenly began to hurt.
    “I couldn’t say,” said Mary Haunt. She stepped to the breadboard, picked up the knife