The Manual of Detection: A Novel - By Jedediah Berry Page 0,60
barge, following a narrow trail between mounds of alarm clocks. His shoes squeaked with every labored step over the slick metal deck. He would have taken them off, but shards of glass from the broken faces of clocks were everywhere.
He paused often to catch his breath and to reposition Moore’s limp body over his back. Finally he saw the edge of the barge. Bobbing over the green-gray swells was the little rowboat Miss Greenwood had promised. But one of the Rooks was nearby, leaning over the water with his big left boot on the rail: Josiah. He gazed across the bay at the mist-shrouded city, smoking a cigarette while the rain poured over the brim of his hat, which was nearly the size of Unwin’s umbrella.
Unwin thought he could reach the boat without Josiah’s seeing, but not without his shoes betraying him. So he crouched and waited for Josiah to finish smoking.
Somewhere amid the hills of clocks, a bell began to ring, a futile attempt to wake some sleeper a mile or more away. To Unwin the sound was a hook in his heart: the world goes to shambles in the murky corners of night, and we trust a little bell to set it right again. A spring is released, a gear is spun, a clapper is set fluttering, and here is the cup of water you keep at your bedside, here the shoes you will wear to work today. But if a soul and its alarms are parted, one from the other? If the body is left alone to its somnolent watches? When it rises—if it rises—it may not recognize itself, nor any of brief day’s trappings. A hat is a snake is a lamp is a child is an insect is a clothesline hung with telephones. That was the world into which Unwin had woken.
While he listened, the one bell was joined by another, and then another, and soon a thousand or more clocks were sounding all at once, a chorus fit to rouse the deepest sleeper. He glanced at his watch. It was eight o’clock; many in the city had meant to wake up now. Instead they had given him a chance to reach the rowboat undetected. The squeaking of his shoes was nothing compared to that thunderous proclamation of morning.
His sleeping companion’s feet dragged bumping behind him as he ran, and the umbrella wobbled above. He leaned against the rails, heaving Edwin Moore up and over. The old man landed hard and the rowboat shuddered beneath him. One of his arms flopped into the water, and his bruised face turned up to the rain.
Josiah looked over—he had felt the rail shift under Unwin’s weight. He flicked his cigarette into the water and came toward Unwin, an expression of mild disappointment on his face.
Unwin clambered up onto the rail, collapsing his umbrella. In his haste he caught the handle on the sleeve of his jacket, and the umbrella popped open again. The wind pulled at it, and Unwin pitched back onto the barge.
Josiah took him by the collar and swung him to the deck, his coat flapping in the rain as he fell upon Unwin. The heat coming off the man was incredible—Unwin thought he saw steam rising from the Rook’s back. Josiah put one enormous hand behind Unwin’s head, as though to cushion it, and the other flat over his face. His hand was dry. He covered Unwin’s nose and mouth and did not take it away. “Let’s both be very quiet now,” he said.
The bells were ringing all around them—some stopping as others started. The ringing joined with the ringing in Unwin’s ears, and a darkness rose up as though from the sea. It seemed to him that he stood on a street in the dark. Children had left chalk drawings on the pavement, but there were no children here. It was the avenue of the lost and secret-less: empty tenement buildings all the way to the bottom of the world.
Detective Pith emerged from the shadows and stood in the cone of light from a streetlamp. “Papers and pigeons, Unwin. It’s all papers and pigeons. We’ll have to rewrite the goddamn manual.”
“Detective Pith,” he said, “I saw them shoot you.”
“Aw, nuts,” said Pith. He took off his hat and held it over his chest. There was a bullet hole in the top of it. “Damn it, Unwin. Do something!” he said, and when he moved the hat away his shirt was covered with blood.