Birds of Paradise by Oliver Langmead (top ebook reader TXT) 📕

a ferocious strike at something. “He’ll catch up,” she says. “He’s got some cleaning up to do. And besides, I don’t think he likes being in the car. He was irritated all the way down.” She inclines her head at the back seat, and Adam turns to see the torn white leather there.

Pulling out onto the highway, she drives them away.

“There’s a new set of papers in the glovebox for you.”

As promised, Adam finds an envelope. He opens it and draws out a new driving licence, birth certificate and passport, as well as a credit card and some cash. “Simon Davies,” he says. “Rook hasn’t called me Adam.”

“I think you pissed him off.”

“Mmm.” Adam folds the documents away and studies the girl. It’s difficult to see her features behind her enormous sunglasses, but she has a way of looking as fragile as porcelain, yet holding herself as if she’s forged out of steel. Her prosthetic leg starts just below the knee, and it’s made of a clear material, which makes it look as if it’s both there and not there at the same time. “I like your leg, Crow,” he tells her.

“Me too.” She smiles.

They drive in silence for a while, with the Pacific to their right, until Crow steers them up a ramp and onto a highway, joining a stream of other cars. A set of police cruisers hurtle past, sirens blaring, but the muscle car’s windows are tinted and none of them slow. Shortly after, a helicopter also sweeps by. Then there is the open road, and Crow lowers her window – dark hair curling and uncurling in the wind.

Adam begins to relax. “What now?” he asks.

“Rook didn’t tell you? You’re going to help me find Magpie.”

“I figured I’d be doing it by myself.”

“It’s my job,” says Crow. “You’re just the muscle. The brawn. I’ve been doing the PI work for Corvid & Corvid for a long time now, and I think I’m pretty good at it. So you just sit back and try to not think too hard.” She turns towards him and lowers her sunglasses, peering over them and pinning him in place. “Don’t kill anybody unless I tell you to, okay?”

“Got it.”

“Good.” She turns back to the road.

The sun is behind them now, and setting. Soon it will be night. “Where are we going? Rook mentioned Scotland.”

“We’ll end up there eventually. But I want to stop off in Louisiana first. Corvid & Corvid have been looking after Owl’s assets since he’s been on sabbatical, and I was going through the papers and noticed that somebody’s been paying to keep the power on in his old Louisiana property. Traced it back to Magpie. They’re big bills, too. He’s been using a lot of electricity. So, Owl and me want to go see what he’s been doing. It’s going to take us a day or two to get over there, though, so you might want to get comfortable. It’s going to be a long drive.”

Shifting in his seat, Adam leans back and yawns. Truth be told, the car is comfortable. “When was the last time I saw you?” he asks.

“French Riviera, I think. You read about it in a book and wanted to go on holiday there, so I came along. Do you remember?”

“Yes,” Adam lies. When he thinks about the Riviera, he thinks about the hot sun, and the mild chattering of the brightly dressed holidaymakers, and the slow boats made wavering by the heat rising from the water. But he’s not sure which bits of his memory belong to the trip, and which belong to the book. He doesn’t remember Crow at all.

“You fell asleep on the beach, and nobody could wake you up or move you, so we just left you there. I came back in the morning and the water was up to your chest, and you were half buried in the sand, but you were still sound asleep. There were crabs crawling over you, and fish in the pools made by your hands. I wish I’d taken a picture. You sleep like the dead, Adam.”

“Guess I’ve got a lot of death to catch up on.” It’s meant to be a joke, but it comes out morbid, as if there’s a truth to it.

With the oncoming dark, Crow removes her sunglasses.

As the last remnants of the day ebb away in red and yellow, Adam closes his eyes. Already, his brief time in jail is beginning to feel like a dream – as if it happened to someone he read about in a book once.

* * *

When Adam wakes, the car is dark and he’s alone.

He steps out into an empty parking lot. There are no lamps – only the blue and pink neon sign revolving nearby, illuminating the trees and the car-less highway. Adam finds a place to sit on the kerb beneath the trees, and listens to the wind as it rustles the loose autumn leaves.

Soon, Crow returns. She hands him a greasy paper bag, and a large cardboard cup, and sits down next to him, removing morsels from her own bag and biting hungrily into them.

They devour their meals in silence.

When they’re done, they stay sitting for a while, and Adam sips at his coffee. Crow is staring up at the sky, looking preoccupied, with the neon sign playing across her features.

“Doesn’t it bother you?” she asks, eventually.

“Doesn’t what bother me?”

“Being stuck to the ground.”

He feels it starting in his stomach – an unfamiliar sensation that grows upwards from there, to his chest and then his throat and his face, bearing fruit as it tumbles from his mouth. When it stops, Adam tries to remember the last time he laughed, but finds that he is unable.

“How are you, Adam?” Crow is studying him, her smile fading.

“I’m fine,” he says.

“Really?”

Adam finishes his coffee, and considers the question. “Honestly? I feel like I’m missing a limb. But every time I count them, they’re all there.”

Crow arches a brow.

“Sorry,” he says, realising his mistake.