Trouble in Paradise

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The furnishings of the small waiting room were shiny with age, mementos of another generation; stiff hand-tooled leather over heavy jacarandá, thick hand-carved legs on solid tables. The embossed metal ceiling was of a type Chaney had not seen since his Chicago boyhood, and then only in barbershops. The only decoration on the plastered walls were large land plats, with scribbled markings in red crayon covering the various sections; Chaney had tried to entertain himself by looking at them, but the contoured maps were unintelligible. Despite the lateness of the hour and the assurance, or at least hope, of a cooling breeze outside, the small room was sweltering — the windows having been painted shut many years before — and the small fan that struggled listlessly but noisily in one corner did little to bring relief. A single bulb tried but failed to hide the inadequacies of the room in shadow. A fly droned angrily, trying to beat itself past the streaked glass of the sealed window to the night outside, although any but the most myopic of insects should have known better than to hope for escape through that great unwashed barrier.

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