Read White Apples for Free Online Page A

eyes when he thought of Isabelle. She was an Italian opera and the sea. He could never believe the depth of his emotion for her and often it frightened him.
    A taxi pulled up. Ettrich got in and gave instructions to the driver as they moved away from the curb. He began to think about what he wanted to say to Bruno, what he wanted to ask. But once again the whole thing became so crushing and impossible that for the moment he pushed it aside as best he could and just stared out into the night.
    He thought about the angry tone of Kitty's voice when they spoke earlier. For the thousandth time since they separated, he felt terrible regret for what he had done to that good and loving woman. The irony being that for the first time in his adult life he had done it solely out of love and no other reason.
    For years, for most of his married life, Vincent Ettrich had been a complete dog when it came to pursuing women.
    Not that he treated them badly. On the contrary, he was the king of the female heart and that was the trouble. He adored women. He adored every•thing about them and they immediately sensed it the moment they met him. So many said they fell hard for him because in many important ways he possessed both a woman's heart and her way of perceiving things. That is a deadly combination in a man who cannot get enough of them. His best friend, a long-ago lover named Leah Maddox, called Ettrich her best girlfriend and was entirely serious. He was the rare kind of man who could sit and listen happily for hours to a woman talk about whatever mattered to her. It was not a trick, not a ploy to con her into thinking she interested him. His curiosity was genuine, his concern palpable. The fact he usually wanted to fuck every one he listened to was something else. Most men he knew saw women as a challenge, he saw them as marvels.
    "Excuse me?"
    Ettrich blinked his musing away and looked in the rearview mirror. The cabdriver, a thin balding man with large eyes and a small nose, was looking at him.
    "Listen, I'm real sorry to ask this, but I got the worst heartburn. I was wondering if you'd mind if I stopped at a drugstore and got something for it? I'll just be a few minutes and I'll give you the rest of the ride for free."
    "Sure, go ahead. Take your time."
    "Hey, that's great. Thanks very much. I know a place in the next block. I'll be as fast as I can."
    "No problem." Ettrich knew he'd arrive at the bar long before Bruno and there really was no hurry. They were no more than five minutes away from the place. Besides, he knew what bad heartburn was all about because it was one of the lousy side effects of work in advertising. Everyone in his office carried a bottle of Tagamet in their briefcase.
    Heartburn. Now that he no longer had a beating heart did that mean he would no longer have heartburn?
    "Here we are," the taxi driver said and pulled slowly to the curb in front of a brightly lit all-night drugstore. He turned off the engine and looked again at Ettrich in the mirror. "Anything I can get you in there? Dental floss, film,
    ice-cream cone?" Ettrich smiled and shook his head. The driver nodded and turned to open his door. He stopped with his left hand in the air. It looked like he was about to say Wait a minute! His hand fell and, with a harsh gasp, he pitched forward onto the steering wheel.
    Ettrich slid forward. "Hey!" He reached up and touched the driver's shoulder. The muscles were loose; there was no tension at all in his body. And then it happened: Up through Ettrich came the feeling of slowly sliding his hand into warm water. Something liquid and warm was moving languidly up his arm toward his shoulder.
    And with no thought, Vincent Ettrich knew that it was the other man's life entering him. This "liquid" flowing up his arm and out of the other was numen, the divine substance, the sacred spirit that lives in a certain place in the body and sustains us all. A moment before, he did not know the word or what it meant. As soon as