Waltz Into Darkness

Начало книги

"Billy," a name on a burned scrap of letter, an unseen figure watching a window, a stealthy knocking at a door.

The soundless music starts. The dancing figures appear,

slowly draw together. The waltz begins.

1

The sun was bright, the sky was blue, the time was May; New Orleans was heaven, and heaven must have been only another New Orleans, it couldn't have been any better.

In his bachelor quarters on St. Charles Street, Louis Durand was getting dressed. Not for the first time that day, for the sun was already high and he'd been up and about for hours; but for the great event of that day. This wasn't just a day, this was the day of all days. A day that comes just once to a man, and now had come to him. It had come late, but it had come. It was now. It was today.

He wasn't young any more. Others didn't tell him this, he told himself this. He wasn't old, as men go. But for such a thing as this, he wasn't too young any more. Thirty-seven.

Читать дальше →