The Best American Mystery Stories, Volume 17 - Plot & Excerpts
His brother Will, who owns the bar and at forty-one is two years younger than Harvey, reaches for an icy Schlitz at the bottom of the cooler, gives it a wipe with the bar towel, twists off the cap, and sets the bottle on the bar just as Harvey gets there. Harvey doesn’t reach for the bottle right away because he’s too angry to drink, too angry to do anything but stand there gripping the curved edge of the cool wooden counter. His fingers knead the scarred mahogany. “I swear to God I am going to kill that pasty-faced weasel once and for all,” he says. Will has been standing behind the bar with nothing much to do and thinking about Portugal. In his mind he has been standing on a bluff overlooking the glittering Atlantic, while behind him on a sun-bleached plateau lies a small, well-ordered city with wide clean streets and whitewashed buildings and the dome of a mosque glowing golden in the sun. It takes Will a moment to adjust to this sudden migration back to his bar and the heat of his brother’s anger.
What do You think about The Best American Mystery Stories, Volume 17?
