Twelfth Angel Read Online Free

his head. “That’s a dozen years ago! Where the hell is the time going?”
    “Old buddy, I don’t know … and I really don’t care.”
    “They tell me that no one has seen you around town since the funeral. Have you been locked up in this house all that time?”
    “No. Every night after dark I walk down the driveway and clean out my mailbox. I don’t have any other reason for going outside. The freezer is pretty full, and there’s still some wine in the cellar.”
    “What about your company? I know they’ve had plenty of problems during the past few years and I would think that they probably need their new leader at the tiller almost every moment to guide them out of their troubled waters.”
    I hesitated. The words were tough to say. “Bill, two days after the funeral I wrote to my best friend on Millennium’sboard and tendered my resignation, stating that the company certainly deserved more, far more, than I felt I was able to offer them, since it had become a terrible struggle for me just to get out of bed in the morning. It didn’t even hurt to write that letter, which gave me a good idea of my state of mind. I had truly buried all my hopes and dreams with Rick and Sally. A couple of weeks have now passed, and I still feel the same way.”
    “That’s a rough, tough board of directors who sit around Millennium’s oval table. Six years ago, John, I used up a lot of sweat and tears putting together their pension plan. I’ve got thirty years of experience in insurance and pension plans, but they made me earn every cent of my commission, and then some. So what kind of response did you get to your letter?”
    “One I never expected. They would not accept my resignation. Gave me a four-month leave of absence, with pay, and suggested that I meet with them sometime soon after Labor Day. In my letter I had suggested the names of two vice presidents, both recruited by me, either of which I believed would do well as my successor. The board did name one of them acting president and chief executive officer for four months.”
    “So … you’ll be back on the job in September?”
    I said nothing.
    “John?”
    What could I tell him? That I never expected to serve another day as Millennium’s president? That I didn’t even want to
live
another day … and as soon as he departed,I was going to finish what he had interrupted and kill myself?
    “John? John, I’m so sorry. It’s much too early for you to begin thinking about going back to work. How inconsiderate of me even to ask. I just came by to offer you my love and my sympathy and to find out if there was anything I could do to make your load a little lighter. Like the old days, remember?”
    I patted his knee and mumbled, “Thanks.”
    Bill rose to his feet, frowning and looking down at me. “I also came for another reason. I need a favor, a favor that no one I know can handle better than you.”
    “Just ask.”
    “My station wagon is parked in your driveway. Will you please come for a ride with me?”
    “What?”
    “A ride. I’d like to take you for a short ride. Won’t even leave town, and I promise to have you back here in thirty minutes. I swear!”
    Thirty minutes. Such a tiny morsel of time. Time. The world’s most precious commodity and increasing in value every day. Franklin had called it the stuff from which life is made, and here was my oldest friend asking me now for
just
thirty minutes, with no idea that if he had come pounding on my window thirty minutes later, he would have found my dead body.
    I shook my head. “Sorry, old friend, but I don’t think I’d make much of a riding companion, even for that short a time. The last automobile I rode in was a long black Cadillac behind a hearse.”
    “Humor me, John. You don’t have to be a good riding companion. Don’t say a damn word if you like. Just come with me, please. Please.”
    I went.
    Neither of us spoke until we had reached Main Street, but when we passed the common and