Pretty Birds
A Novel
Chapter One
November 1992
Irena Zaric put her last stick of gum in her mouth, winked at a
bird, and wondered where to put her last bullet before going home.
Sometimes she conferred with the pigeons that flocked along her
arms. "What have you seen, boy? What's going on over there?" The
birds were cohorts; they roosted together.
The grim sky was beginning to open into a briny blue. The first
winds of the day from the hills blew in with a bite of sun and a
smell of snow. It was the time of day when sharp sounds-the scorch
of a shot, a scream, a humdrum thud-could be heard best in the
hollow streets. After a long night alone in the city's rafters,
Irena was consoled by the swish of the pigeons. They reassured her:
she wasn't the only one left in town.
The birds were tired and, she imagined, cranky from hunting for tree
limbs to settle on. Their feathers clapped in the stillness. People
with hatchets and kitchen knives had hacked down most of the city's
trees to burn them for heat and cooking fuel. The park across from
the old Olympic Stadium, where Irena used to ... read full excerpt from: Pretty Birds ebook
