Cards on the Table - lanyon Josh - Страница 28
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«Is that the way it usually works? I don't know anything about…murder.» Peter almost couldn't get the word out. It felt like his throat was trying to close up, rather than to utter that ugly, violent word.
Jesse and Phillip came downstairs, helped serve soup and sandwiches. Peter could see that they wanted to help, but they were young, too, and couldn't help enjoying the drama just a bit and the milling crowds of grateful and tired firefighters with their brawny shoulders. But when they caught sight of Peter, they remembered Jacob, and the sadness fell over their faces again.
So Peter stayed in the kitchen, wondered what he could cook that would take a lot of concentration, something that tasted as rich as sorrow. Maybe burgundy beef. Sebastian liked that. Maybe he would come, if Peter fixed some of the food he liked.
Sorrow was real, but it was an indulgence, he decided, browning mushrooms and scallions in butter and olive oil. It was rich and flavorful, like pound cake. Sorrow was to sadness what pound cake was to Twinkies. This drizzly gray morning with its wet, cold wind, it wasn't sorrowful. It felt like the sky was throwing a childish tantrum. No, sorrow was like a bright autumn day, Indian summer, the leaves already turning, the sunlight golden and warm as a pumpkin. It was the inevitability of autumn that made it so sorrowful, like the lines of age on Sebastian's face, and his own. But there was nothing inevitable about murder. It was the opposite of inevitable, the sharp hacking cut with an axe down through a life, the future severed and lost like an amputated limb.
Where was that Keats poem about autumn? Peter dried his hands on his apron and crossed into the living room. Where was the Keats? He pulled the book out, opened it to the table of contents. Jacob was like Keats, both young artists who were too fragile for the worlds they lived in. Oh, there it was. «Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness…» Those British, they didn't know mists. They ought to live off the coast of Alaska if they wanted to know what mist was. He walked back through to the kitchen door, reading, and didn't hear Susan talking to him until she reached out for his arm and shook it. «What?»
She looked around, then pulled him into the kitchen. She stopped in the doorway, astonishment on her face, slowly scanned the room. Peter looked, too. Every countertop was covered, copper bowls, measuring cups, bags of bread flour, glass bowls of eggs, blocks of butter. «What? I'm cooking.»
«Okay, Peter.» She looked at him carefully. «Just, you know, checking on you. My friend.» «What's your favorite season?» «Spring, I guess. Maybe winter.» «Which season feels like sorrow to you?» «I don't know, Peter. Maybe this one. Hey. Sebastian's coming.» * * * * *
It was a good thing that pound cake froze well. Peter baked and wrapped twelve loaves of lemon pound cake for the freezer, and kept two out for his guests. And for Sebastian, who didn't appreciate his pound cake, but ate it anyway, ate it like he would eat anything, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich even. Peter went back to the pantry, got a couple of extra jars of that blueberry jam Sebastian liked.
He knew it was him when he heard the commotion out front. Sebastian seemed to carry commotion with him. Maybe he incited it. Maybe it just happened spontaneously when he was near, something in the air around him, some commotion pheromone he gave off. Peter leaned against the doorway to the living room to watch the show.
Jesse and Phillip were sitting on the sofa, very close together and big-eyed, holding hands. Travis was watching from behind the desk. Casper was reclined in the easy chair, taking one of his ten-minute naps. Sebastian stood in the middle of the room like a grizzly, wrapped head to toe in a disreputable collection of frontier furs and ratty brown canvas. He was huge, well over six-five, and looked like Atlas with the earth perched on his big shoulders.
Jesse and Phillip had never witnessed an Alaskan striptease. The fur mittens came off first, dropped onto the floor. Then the scarf and neck gaiter, both fleece. When Sebastian pulled off the silver fur hat, he shook his head and his shaggy black hair fell into place down to his shoulders. He shrugged out of his down coat, dropped it on the pile. Next came the padded ski overalls, black nylon, unbuckled and slid down to his hips. Underneath was a quilted plaid flannel shirt. Jesse's mouth fell open when Sebastian undid the buttons, one by one, dropped the flannel shirt on the pile. He sat down on the edge of the chair, kicked off
his bunny boots, those huge rubber boots the color of vanilla ice cream that Alaskan men wore who worked outside. He skinned out of the overalls, stood up in thermal long underwear – charcoal gray, knit from silk and cashmere yarns and softer than a baby's ass. Peter knew that because he had bought them for Sebastian, three pairs, size XL-Tall.
Sebastian opened his hands like a magician, and he was holding two tiny, squirming puppies, little baby sled dogs, maybe four weeks old. «Oh, let me hold them!» Jesse and Phillip each took a puppy, and the room erupted into yips and squeals and baby talk.
Sebastian pulled off his socks, left everything in a pile on the living room floor, and padded barefoot over to where Peter was standing. Sebastian had the black hair and black eyes of his Athabascan grandmother, and the easy smile of a southern beauty queen.
Peter rolled his eyes and handed him a peanut butter and blueberry jam on homemade white bread, wrapped in a paper towel.
«You got some dry clothes for me? I'm freezing. I got soaked coming over on the ferry.»
Peter couldn't help but notice that Sebastian was freshly shampooed and shaved. He didn't smell like a guy who had just spent six months in a Yukon River fish camp. He smelled like peppermint foot lotion. «And they say live theater is dead!» «Holy shit! Did you see that guy?» It was Jesse in the living room. Sebastian winked and took a big bite out of his sandwich. * * * * *
After Peter closed the kitchen door behind them, Sebastian put his sandwich on the counter and tugged Peter into a big, bruising hug. Peter let himself have a moment or two of comfort, silk and cashmere and Sebastian's big chest under his cheek, brawny arms tugging him close, but he was afraid to stay there too long. Too many people in the house, too much to do. He didn't have time to break down.
Sebastian's big hands stroked his back. «Peter, what the fuck have you done?» Peter felt a frisson of shock. Sebastian was furious. «You know where Susan is?»
«She was here just a minute ago.» He looked around the kitchen as if she might be hiding behind a copper pot. «Sebastian…»
Sebastian picked up the police radio and keyed the button. «Cop-1, Cop-1, what's your twenty?» «I'm in my vehicle. Who wants to know?» «Your brother.» «Stay put. I'll be there in twenty minutes.»
He set the radio down on the counter, turned to Peter. «You got any of my clothes in a box somewhere, Peter?»
Peter turned around, blinking in surprise, a dishtowel in his hand. «Your clothes are where they always are, Sebastian. The bottom two drawers in the dresser.»
Sebastian had his arms crossed over his big chest, shivering. «I thought you might have moved my stuff. To leave yourself some room, Peter.» He rubbed a big hand down his face, and Peter could see the misery. «You fell in love with somebody else. You took a kid into my bed, a new lover. I can't believe it, Peter. And not one word to me.»
Peter shook his head, and the sky outside spit and rumbled in misery. «It wasn't like that, Sebastian. Just a weekend. Something unexpected and…dear.» Peter blinked hard to keep the tears from spilling from his eyes. «I didn't have time to fall in love, but I might have. Jacob was sweet. A cellist, talented and, I don't know, so eager and loving. And really young. You would have fallen in love with him, too. And now somebody's killed him! Here, at the hotel!»
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