Free The Portrait of Mrs Charbuque by Jeffrey Ford Page B

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    The ultimate punch line was that my eyes finally closed somewhere in that morass of contemplation, and I passed my stop by two blocks. I woke suddenly when we halted at Twenty-third Street, and I
    leaped off just before the car began to move again. My notebook, as light as it was in actuality, seemed as heavy as a rock as I staggered back to my house, half dreaming, thinking only of taking to my bed.
    Consider my utter disappointment when I saw a visitor sitting on my steps. I tell you, I nearly wept.
    As I drew closer, the person waiting stood, having noticed my approach. From his height and wiry
    frame, the drooping handlebar mustache and wave of raven-black hair, I knew it was John Sills, the police detective who had saved me from a beating the previous night. During his off-hours he dressed rather informally—an old army jacket and the flat lid of a day laborer.
    "Johnny," I said, "thank you for intervening on my behalf last night. I have a definite aversion to being clubbed."
    I knew him to be a very affable fellow, and now he proved it by breaking into a wide smile and laughing. "Merely fulfilling my duty as a public servant," he said.
    "I suppose you are here to explain what the hell was going on with that wretched woman last night,"
    I said.
    "No, Piambo, I'm here to remind you that, for the time being, that incident never happened."
    "Come now, John," I said. "You can easily buy my silence with an explanation."
    He looked over his shoulder and up and down the length of the block. Then he moved closer to Page 29

    me and whis-pered, "You've got to swear that you will tell no one. I'll lose my job if you do."
    "You have my word," I said.
    "That woman is the third we've found like that. The coroner thinks she was suffering from some kind of exotic disease brought in on one of the ships from Arabia or the Caribbean, perhaps China. Listen, I'm just a cop, so don't ask for anything scientific, but I understand that the fel-lows at the Department of
    Health have discovered a kind of parasite; something they've never come across before. It eats the soft tissue of the eye and leaves the wound unable to heal. It happens very rapidly. At first the victim weeps blood, and then the eyes are gone, becoming two spigots that cannot be turned off."
    "And the higher-ups think it better if no one knows about it?" I asked, horrified.
    "For now. It's not like a plague that passes rapidly from one person to the next. In fact, there doesn't seem to be any connection among the three victims. As far as we can tell, they're isolated incidents. But if word of this reaches the
    Times or the
    World, all hell will break loose. Mayor Grant wants it kept quiet for now until we can discover the source of the parasite."
    "I will keep it close, John. You can trust me," I said. "But if you've come in contact with this woman, what is it that has kept you safe?"
    "It appears that once it has fed, the bug becomes dormant. For how long, no one knows, because they have cremated the bodies immediately after studying them."
    "Let's hope they can stop it," I said.
    "If they can't, we'll all be crying in our beer," he said, and gave a grim smile.
    I could tell from this ill-conceived joke that he had fin-ished speaking about the incident. Truly wanting to know, I asked him how his painting was coming along. He had a great deal of natural talent, and over the years, stealing time from his job and his wife and children, he had become a very creditable miniaturist. Some of his works were no bigger than a cigarette case, and many of the images in them were rendered with a brush that held only two very fine hairs. He informed me that he had just fin-ished a series of portraits of criminals and that a few of them would be included in a group show at the Academy of Design.
    "It opens next week," he said, and moved forward to shake my hand. "Tell Shenz to come along also."
    "I will," I said, and clasped hands with him.
    Before leaving, he said in a