Eye of the Archangel by Forrest DeVoe Jr

Author:Forrest DeVoe, Jr.
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins

10

Kendrick Insists

Arne Jespers had been an insomniac all his life. It was not, he considered, an unpleasant affliction. He required little sleep, and rather enjoyed being awake while others were snoring; he liked seeing and hearing and thinking things no one else was around to share. He thought most clearly and fluently in the small hours. There was less around to distract one. He was, he knew, a very easily, a very readily distracted man. As a small child he’d spied on his parents during the night, and when they died he’d spied on the other children in the orphanage, and in this way he had often been able to acquire useful bits of knowledge that would improve his situation when daylight came. He’d learned to steal in the quiet hours of sleeplessness. He’d gotten some of his favorite things that way, and learned to hide them. Sleeplessness had been a treasure house for Arne Jespers. The private wakeful hours were like secret late-night treats sneaked from the cupboard, just for him, and in fact these days he sometimes crept down to the kitchen in the hours before dawn, one of his fine new kitchens with all the appliances, and made himself a nice sandwich.

Tonight he’d made a nice big sandwich, a highly miscellaneous sandwich, a sandwich that would probably horrify his chefs. Herring in wine sauce, big round disks of raw onion, gobs of chutney, slices of Emmenthaler cheese, some sauerkraut, some slivers of cold roast duck, a few chunks of cold sausage from breakfast, all on two thick slabs of pumpernickel. It was a gross sandwich, a disgusting sandwich—and he was enjoying it thoroughly, wandering the halls as he munched, leaving dribbles of sauerkraut juice behind him. The only thing the sandwich lacked was bacon. Perhaps he’d wake someone up and have them fry some bacon. He stepped through the sliding glass doors and leaned his elbows on the balcony railing, looking at the yachts in the harbor as he ate, dropping bits of sausage and onion into the Boulevard Albert below. He was very happy. Tomorrow was the first Grand Prix of the season. It was the best day of the year, a day better than Christmas—his childhood Christmases hadn’t really been so good—and he’d found a way to make it still better: it would be a Grand Prix that would bring him fifty thousand American dollars. For his nostrils were full of the fragrance of oncoming rain.

Oncoming rain, and—he sniffed deeply—something else. Something pleasant, something luscious. What? Not the cheese, the nice stinky cheese; not the Bermuda onion, that clean, sharp, almost sweaty onion; not the rich, sweet duck; not the freshly paved roadway below; not the rope, tar, brass polish, damp canvas, and diesel fuel of the harborfront; not the lovely cool sea with the lovely expensive boats on it, winking sleepily in the moonlight, all white and long and shiny; but something in between the sweetness of the duck and the salt of the sea, something…

He stopped chewing and listened.

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