to make out from where he was, so he straightened up and walked across the room. The message contained only two words, written in DeGraffenreid’s blood: PUSKIS DESIST.
He stared at it, thoughts racing, for once, incoherently. He reached out to touch the letters, then stopped himself before actually making contact. He shook his head slowly and let out an involuntary moan.
The noise from outside again penetrated his consciousness, as the strange shuffling and tapping sounds were now close, then replaced by the creak of the front steps and a new tapping sound of wood against wood. Puskis turned to face the door. The only other points of egress were the windows and a door to his left. He didn’t go for them though, and a silhouette appeared in the door.
“Mr. Reif . . . Mr. Reif, you there?” The man waited for an answer. Puskis worried the man could hear his breathing.
“Mr. Reif, you there?” The man opened the door and Puskis saw an old black man in overalls and a straw hat. A farmer. He was blind, with blackout glasses and a cane. Puskis stood still, trying to control his breathing.
The blind man walked forward, tapping ahead of him with the cane. “Mr. Reif?” He took two more steps and his cane hit DeGraffenreid’s body. He stopped and probed the body with his cane. Then he bent down and touched the body. “Mr. Reif,” he whispered as his fingers came away wet. He stiffened and craned his neck, searching with his ears rather than his eyes.
“Who’s there?” he said sharply. Puskis stood transfixed. “I know there’s someone there,” the blind man said again, his voice edging toward hysteria. “Something terrible’s happened here. Who’s there?”
The blind man rose and began advancing toward Puskis, his cane tapping in semicircular sweeps. Puskis retreated to the back wall, and the sound of his footsteps stopped the blind man short. Puskis started to edge his way toward the door to his left, but the blind man, hearing him, made a move to intercept him. Puskis stopped and began to circle the room the other way, but the blind man followed his footsteps, cutting off the room the way a boxer cuts off the ring.
“Who is that?” the old man rasped.
Puskis circled faster to his right and the blind man made a move to beat him to the front door, only to trip over DeGraffenreid’s prone body, his cane skidding across the floor toward Puskis as he fell. Puskis seized his moment, moving as quickly as he could out the front door. He took the three steps down to the ground, then trotted, clumsy and out of breath, to the car. To his relief it started on the first try.
He turned to the house and saw the blind man on the porch without his cane. “What has happened here?” the man yelled out. Puskis reversed out of the driveway onto the road and sped away into the maze of cornfields, now turning purple with the onset of night.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Frings watched Nora smoke a Chesterfield through a holder. She had long, elegant fingers for a woman so generously proportioned. Her eyes on the jazz band up on the stage, she showed no indication of enjoyment or boredom. She was simply there. Not that this was unusual. Nora’s pleasure in music came from performing, from the exchange of energy between herself and the audience. It was, Frings supposed, a sensual feeling for her to be onstage; her ability to translate this feeling through her voice, along with her physical beauty, made her the sex symbol she was. The upshot, however, was that she did not especially enjoy being in the audience for a jazz show. Given a choice, she would probably have rather been at the symphony.
They were at the Palace on the City’s East Side—its black side. The place was nearly full, with Frings and Nora two of only a handful of Caucasians. It was their favorite place; for Nora, because here she could relax somewhat, away from the usual attention. On the East Side, the black musicians were the celebrities, while she was just one of the vanguard of fashionable whites who ventured here to enjoy the scene and—if less so in her case—the music. As for Frings, he liked the music, but it was also where he could score his reefer.
“You enjoying the band?” he asked her as the musicians paused between songs to retune their instruments and take a quick sip of whatever