Free The Ice Harvest by Scott Phillips Page A

walls were bare, and his living room furniture consisted in its entirety of a black La-Z-Boy, a matching ottoman, and a small television set. He stood there in the dark and thought about turning it on and watching a few minutes of a movie, but he was afraid of falling asleep and missing his appointment with Vic. His two suitcases sat by the door. It seemed like a lot of trouble to carry them both, and he wondered once again if he could consolidate them down to one, but he didn’t know how much room he’d need for the money. Better to play it safe with one of them half-empty.
    On his refrigerator door was the only piece of decoration in the apartment, a crayon drawing of a clown Melissa had given him two years earlier. He opened the door and looked inside, wondering if anything in it was safe to eat, but all of his perishables appeared to have perished. Inside the door was a carton with eight eggs in it, and he tried to remember when he’d eaten the other four. He remembered making a couple of omelettes one morning after Dora had spent the night. When had he stopped seeing her, around Labor Day? Or was it even earlier than that?
    He went into the bedroom and sat on the bed in the dark. He’d only brought her here once. They almost always went to her place, mainly because his was so empty. Maybe he could call her one last time, apologize, try to explain why he was leaving, maybe try to get her into the sack one last time, for old times’ sake.
    Again he felt the beginnings of an erection. What was going on tonight, anyway? Maybe the fact that he was leaving town was making him horny, some sociobiological need to leave part of his genetic code behind before moving on. Maybe it was the coke nullifying the usual antiaphrodisiac effects of the alcohol. Maybe it was the unprecedented close contact with Renata and the unbelievable suggestion of a later reward. Good God, had he actually turned down a chance to fuck Renata? What a way that would have been to say good-bye to the old town.
    He shook his head, resisting his overwhelming desire to lie back on the bed. This wasn’t going to work; if he stayed in the apartment any longer he’d fall asleep. It would be better to head east in the direction of Vic’s house. He’d stop in at the Midtown Tap and kill some time, maybe get a chance to see Tommy after all. He picked up his bags and took them outside. He started to lock the door, then thought better of it and walked away with the key still in the lock. That would give them something to think about.

    Driving east toward town on the state highway, he felt himself getting drowsy again, and there was a dull throb at his hip. The snow was coming down in big, slow-moving flakes now, churning brightly across his high beams, and his visibility was only about twenty feet. He was keeping it just below forty, half out of caution and half out of a dim but growing awareness of his own drunkenness. Passing an off-ramp just short of the city limits he pulled off on an impulse and headed west onto the access road half a mile to a parking lot behind a long, low, one-story building. He misjudged his speed entering his space and crunched the front end of the Mercedes into the orange brick wall of the building. He got out and had a look. Some of the bricks were cracked, and the Mercedes’ bumper was scarred pretty badly. He shrugged and went inside. It was Bill Gerard’s building and Betsy van Heuten’s Mercedes. Who gave a shit?
    A bell gave a sad, dull tinkle when he pushed on the door. It was dark inside and smelled of ammonia.
    “Charlie. I was hoping you were a customer.” Behind the counter a heavyset young man with wild curly hair was bent over a film cutter. He had on a pair of torn blue bib overalls over a pair of ratty long johns. “Did you just crash into the wall out there?”
    “Yeah, that was me. How’s it going, Lenny?”
    “We need a new projector in booth five. The one in there now keeps chewing up film.”
    Charlie