The Uncomplaining Corpses

Начало книги

Michael Shayne said, “All right, Mr. Thrip. I’ll be over to see you right away.” He pronged the receiver on the hook and stood beside the bedside table staring at the wall for a moment, rubbing his chin perplexedly.

It was a large corner bedroom newly decorated in cream and ivory with a light tan and yellow rug on the floor. The furniture was blond maple of modernistic style, a suite which Phyllis Shayne, nee Brighton, had selected before they went on their honeymoon to Cuba. Shayne hadn’t approved of it, but he hadn’t told Phyllis so. Now, after three days of living in the new apartment, he was glad. Phyllis fitted into the modernistic background as though it had been originally designed for her.

An afternoon breeze blew in from Biscayne Bay, fluttering the draperies at Shayne’s left. From wide south windows at his right he could hear the hum of traffic entering the city from Brickell Avenue over the Miami River drawbridge. The sounds were familiar. He had listened to them for more than a decade during which he lived in a bachelor apartment one floor below this one, yet it seemed to Shayne that he had never heard them until three days ago. He had an odd feeling that past years had not been real, an interlude of futility while he waited for a two weeks’ honeymoon in Cuba with Phyllis and these three days at home.

Читать дальше →