Bellevue

Начало книги

Dr. Clarence Fuller, a forty-four-year-old psychiatrist, emerged from his Gramercy Park brownstone at exactly eight o’clock and eyed the shiny new Checker taxicab waiting for him at the curb. It was a weekday-morning ritual he’d arranged with a local cab company to convey him to work at the Bellevue Psychopathic Hospital. Although the trip was only two and a half blocks east and ten blocks north, he preferred to ride rather than walk, especially now that it was mid-November and decidedly chilly. Clarence, an avowed automobile enthusiast who prided himself on his 1947 Cadillac Series 62 convertible, knew he was looking at a brand-new 1949 Checker A2. As he opened the rear-hinged back door and climbed into the spacious interior, he greeted the uniformed driver and complimented him on the car.

“Yup,” the driver responded as he put the cab in gear and pulled away from the curb, heading east on 20th Street. “Just got this beauty yesterday, and it drives like a dream.”

Читать дальше →