Color of Angels' Souls by Sophie Audouin-Mamikonian Page A

night. And when she had finally seen him on the street, she had walked up to him, and—
    There was only one possible explanation.
    The killer hadn’t been looking for Jeremy.
    The killer had come … for her!

5
The Taste of Others
    Jeremy had been waiting impatiently for the meeting for two days, splitting his time between Allison and his half sister. Rose’s & Blues was amazing. It was in a former luxury hotel built in the 1930s by William Van Alen, the same architect who built the Chrysler Building. Walking into the club was like traveling in a time machine back to the days when the ladies were all dolled up in long glamorous dresses and mink stoles, the gangsters were ruthless outlaws, and the only alcohol you could get was sold in a back room.
    But what took Jeremy most by surprise when he entered were the tables.
    That were floating.
    Up above the living.
    The Angels had found a place up beneath the vaulted ceiling to set up their own lounge, complete with floating tables, chairs, and sofas. They lolled about, talking and laughing loudly, making just as much noise as the people down below. Once the surprise wore off, Jeremy began looking around the room. It was eight o’clock sharp. His grandfather and father were nowhere to be found. The place was packed and everyone was digging a great jazz quartet. There was a throng of blue and red Angels feeding on the white, gray, and blue vapors, but there was no sign of Paul or James. He thought that he’d caught a glimpse of Tetisheri again, but the chubby blue Angel melted away in the crowd of living people down below.
    Jeremy took a seat at the edge of a booth, unable to contain his impatience. He balanced unsteadily on the edge, unable to sit back and relax on a living human being, as many of the Angels were doing.
    â€œOh please, would you put a sock in it already!” he growled after a few minutes, fed up with the flighty woman splayed out next to him on the burgundy-colored cushion who was going on and on about her mind-numbingly boring life.
    â€œYou know, you can go on talking to her until the next big bang, and she still won’t hear a word you say,” exclaimed a jovial voice right beside him.
    Jeremy almost jumped through the roof. Heart racing, he turned to see a young blue-and-red boy staring at him, sitting comfortably on the sofa.
    â€œShit!” Jeremy cursed. “I almost—”
    â€œHad a heart attack?” quipped the boy. “Nah, that’s impossible. But I couldn’t resist the temptation.”
    â€œHey! I remember you; didn’t you—”
    â€œ Ja, ja , the one who explained the difference in velocity between two bodies in motion driven by non-equivalent modes of propulsion when you were desperately trying to catch up with your cadaver in the ambulance. Yes. The name’s Albert Einstein, passed over in 1955.”
    Jeremy shook his hand without thinking, his eyes wide as saucers. Was the kid serious or what?
    â€œEinstein. Albert Einstein? E=mc 2 ? The letter to the president? The Manhattan Project?”
    â€œThat’s the one,” sighed the boy. “That letter hounded me throughout my life and, alas, even after my death. But let’s get one thing straight: I never took part in that project. The atomic bomb and all that crap? All I did was write a stupid letter to President Roosevelt to let him know that the Nazis were about to get their hands on some uranium from mines in the Congo, and were studying the possibility of developing a new kind of bomb. I should have just kept my mouth shut.”
    It was true that Jeremy had seen many a strange thing since he’d passed over to the afterlife, but he still found the boy’s story hard to believe. He looked him over suspiciously.
    â€œEinstein was seventy-six years old when he died. Excuse me for saying so, but you look a tad young to be someone so old!”
    â€œ Ja, ja, ich weiss ,” the boy nodded.