The Snow Falcon Read Online Free

to him coming back here. Sometimes during the journey he’d thought that twenty years does a lot to change people; maybe nobody would remember him; and if they did, maybe they wouldn’t care about what had happened seven years ago back East. Maybe it hadn’t even been reported here.
    He went up the stairs and entered an outer office. A young woman smiled at him as she looked up from her word processing.
    “Hi. Can I help you?”
    “I’m here to see Carl Jeffrey.”
    “Sure, I’ll get him for you. Can I give him your name?”
    “Michael Somers.”
    Her smile faltered the way it might have if she’d reached to pet a dog that had then unexpectedly growled at her.
    “I’ll tell Mr. Jeffrey that you’re here.”
    Though there was a phone on her desk she could have used, she got up and went through to an inner office, glancing quickly back at him as she closed the door behind her. When the door opened again after a minute or two, she returned to her desk, avoiding his eye as she went. Carl was just behind her, his expression split into a wide smile.
    “Hey, Michael! It’s been a long time. How are you?” They shook hands, then stood back a second to look each other over, Carl shaking his head. “Hell, you look just the way you did when I last saw you.”
    “You look good yourself, Carl.”
    In fact, Carl was as Michael had imagined he might have turned out. The face was the same, only fleshier than he remembered, neck and jowls merging into rolls that flowed over the collar of his shirt. The suit he wore was wrinkled at the arms and stretched tight around his middle, and there was a faint stain on his tie. Carl waved an arm and ushered him into his office.
    “How about some coffee or something?”
    “Coffee would be great.”
    Carl called back to his secretary. “Jenny, did you hear that? Fetch us some coffee, would you? How about a doughnut? There’s a bakery a couple of doors down that does pretty good food. You hungry?”
    “I’m okay, thanks.”
     
    16
     
    Carl’s expression creased into a slight frown of indecision, his eyes growing smaller in his face. He made up his mind while Jenny waited by her desk. “Just get me one of those cream-cheese bagels. Poppy-seed,” he called out. He turned back to Michael and patted his expansive stomach. “I have to watch what I eat.”
     
    Michael didn’t comment, thinking that it seemed he was fighting a losing battle.
     
    Carl smiled broadly again, shaking his head in disbelief as he went behind his big wooden desk. “How long has it been? Twenty years? How’d you manage to stay looking so good? Sit down, make yourself at home. Smoke?” He picked up a pack of Camel Lights from the desk and offered them across.
     
    “No thanks. I quit.”
     
    “Yeah? I should do the same. These things’ll kill you, that’s for Carl lit a cigarette and speculatively blew smoke across the
     
    sure.
     
    room as he settled his bulk back into his chair.
    They were the same age, thirty-seven, but Carl looked older. He had the smooth features that overweight people often have, and his size made him look prosperous in a smalltown kind of way. It was the suit, partly, and the office, with its big desk and chair and its windows overlooking the street. In the city he would have looked like a rumpled, slightly seedy second-rate lawyer and his features might have adopted a harassed attitude, but here he appeared well settled—rooted and confident. In contrast, Michael knew he himself looked edgy. He saw it in his own expression when he caught himself unawares, passing his reflection in a window or a mirror. He thought he appeared guarded, his brow vaguely furrowed, as if he was worrying at some internal problem. His hair, though, was thick and fair, and sometimes he caught in the way he looked a trace of the younger man he’d once been, even the boy back beyond that, and he guessed that was why Carl seemed surprised by his appearance. Maybe he didn’t fit Carl’s idea of