Grist 06 - The Bone Polisher Read Online Free

better—”
    I had an eye on the door into the hallway. “They still say it.”
    “Thank you. They say ‘There’s no fool like an old fool,’ too, and they’re absolutely right. Anyway, the older man took him under his wing, and Christy decided to go into the antique business. With the older man’s antiques. And went to jail.”
    “And with this curriculum vitae, you took him in.”
    He looked down at his glass and rubbed his index finger around its rim. “One doesn’t choose whom one will love.”
    “No,” I said, “but one can avoid stepping into a hole, can’t one?”
    “Are we talking about Christy or the new boys?”
    “Chris is worried about the new boys. And now I see why.”
    He looked at me. “Did you choose whom you love?”
    This was not on my agenda. “Not very well, apparently.”
    “She’ll come back to you,” Max Grover said.
    “I know,” I said impatiently. “Nostradamus predicted it.”
    He gave me a little chug of a laugh. “Disappointed romantics.”
    I felt stung. “And you’re a satisfied romantic.”
    “I do what I can. I’ve been fortunate, you see, and so many haven’t. Sometimes I help one way, sometimes I help another. I like to think that the ones who steal from me are helped, too.”
    “I’m sure you do.”
    He refused to take offense. “You think it’s self-delusion, and you’re probably right. At my age, no one else is going to take the trouble to delude me—at least, not romantically—so I have to do it for myself. Besides, I derive a certain almost sensual pleasure—nothing to start a war over—from doing favors for people. And, since I am Not As Other Men, I tend to do my favors for young men. How can they hurt me? I don’t own much. This house, which I bought thirty-five years ago, a few books—”
    “They can hurt you,” I said. “For example, one of them could decide to cut you open.”
    “And steal what? A year or two, after I’ve lived seventy-seven of them? Small change. And anyway, that’s not going to happen.” He gave me a benevolent smile. “Why did she leave you?”
    “I screwed around. I’m a jerk sometimes. Listen, Max—can I call you Max?”
    “I can’t think of a better name. And believe me, I’ve tried.”
    “Your desire for intensity can get you killed.”
    “I’m safe,” he said. “But you’re in peril.”
    I ignored it. “Whatever you get from these kids can’t be worth the risk.”
    “What I
get
?” He pointed a finger at himself. “You think I sleep with them?”
    “I don’t know,” I said. Of
course
I thought he slept with them.
    He laced his fingers together over one crossed knee and sat back a good half-inch. There were long ropes of muscle in the tan forearms. “Well, I do. But that’s all. Two heads on the pillow, maybe a little buddy talk before the light goes off, someone to squeeze an orange for in the morning. But sex, never. I just want to help. I thought you understood. I’m in love with Christy.”
    I started to reply, and he said, “That was tactless of me.”
    I’d missed something. “I beg your pardon?”
    “Your relationship. You were in love, but that didn’t keep you faithful.”
    “It takes all kinds,” I said. I was suddenly as hot as the day pressing itself against the windows.
    “You were unfaithful because you were afraid of being in love,” he said. He looked past me, at the rows of books, and grinned. “Love is nothing to be afraid of, you know.”
    “We’re not talking about—”
    The grin broadened. “Most men your age don’t blush so easily.”
    “Yeah, well, I’ve got a lot to blush about.”
    “A blush is just the higher nature showing through.”
    “Poking its big fat nose in,” I said.
    “The higher nature is always with you. All of you is always with you, the little dirty secret things and the big grand ones, too. Whatever snapshot you think you’re posing for at the moment, it’s all with you.”
    “Max,” I said, “if you want to keep all of