This Thing of Darkness Read Online Free Page B

the suit was twenty years out of date, so it was possible it had been given away to a charity shop and snapped up by an elderly man with tastes beyond his current means. But the Star of David had also been good quality gold, and the shoes had been nice enough to steal.
    â€œI think he had—or used to have—some money, and whatever he’d done for a living, expensive clothes were important.” Green was grasping at straws, but he hoped some small detail might twig Sid’s memory. “It’s possible he was also from Russia.”
    â€œAch.” Sid waved a dismissive hand. “Russian Jews are everywhere.”
    â€œHe had an antique gold Magen David from Russia. Think, Dad. Well-off, well dressed, lived alone, might have had a Russian accent, used a cane.” Sid was still looking blank. “Could he have lived in your building?”
    â€œNot in my building, no. But you could ask at the shul up on Chapel St. If he lived downtown around the old neighbourhood, they might know. The alter kakers go there for services, to say kaddish for their wives and parents who’ve died.” Sid said the word for old men with contempt. He had tossed his faith, and his trust in old men, on the funeral pyres of Auschwitz.
    The suggestion of the Chapel Street synagogue was brilliant, and Green was just about to thank his father when the front door burst open, and a shriek filled the restaurant.
    â€œZaydie!” Tony came charging down the aisle, his dark curls bouncing and his chocolate brown eyes shining. Sharon scrambled to deflect him from waiters laden high with trays. A good ten seconds later, to Green’s surprise, Hannah slunk through the door, her orange hair plastered up one side of her head and last night’s mascara still smudged beneath her eyes.
    Sid clapped his hands, all trace of irritation gone. His day was complete.

Three
    O mar Adams rolled over to the wall and pulled his pillow over his head. He still couldn’t block out the incessant natter of his three younger brothers, who were crouched on the floor in the little space between their beds, playing Warcraft II on their Play Station. In the background he could hear his mother and father arguing, his mother in Somali and his father in English. As usual, his mother shrieked like a demented crow, but the scary one was his father, who got quieter the angrier he was. The old man was deadly quiet this morning.
    Morning? Omar lifted the pillow to check. No sunlight was poking through the small, narrow window in the corner of the room, and the smell of spices and onions filled the air. Fuck, had he missed half the day? His stomach lurched, and he had to swallow hard to keep the bile down. His head ached, and his mouth tasted of stale puke. When he shifted, pain shot through his arms. He couldn’t remember why. He couldn’t remember a fucking thing about last night, after that last bottle of vodka and the weed they’d passed around. Special weed, Nadif had said, scored from a new source. Some special!
    He wondered how the other guys felt. Besides Nadif and Yusuf, his street buddies, he knew there were others, even though he couldn’t remember who. Or how he’d got home, or what time. He remembered them all sitting around drinking in the gazebo in Macdonald Gardens, talking about Nadif ’s court case, about the brothers who were refusing to testify against him and the old man with the lousy eyesight who’d fingered Nadif. He remembered them all walking down Rideau Street, ogling the hookers. Yusuf said he did one once, for fifty bucks behind the construction fence for the new condo, but then Yusuf ’s big brother ran a slew of them himself, so he probably got a family discount.
    The thought of drinking brought the bile up again, so Omar tried to make his mind go blank. Blank out the pounding in his chest and the pain in his hands. Blank out the flashes that danced behind his eyelids, the clenched