Kaspar's Box by Jack Chalker

Author:Jack Chalker [Chalker, Jack]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: sf
Published: 2003-03-31T20:00:00+00:00

VII: THE DISLOYAL OPPOSITION

The street might have been out of some idealized old history film or photo save for some of the exotic trees and flowers that could be seen both in front of the stately line of cleaner-than-nature brick brownstones and in the small flower boxes set outside oversized upper-floor windows. The places were larger than they looked at first glance, but still might have been dismissed as middle-class housing but for the gilding around the windows, doors, and immaculate edgework, and the fact that few middle-class townhouses sported upper-story gargoyles and such intricate wrought-iron works placed almost purely for decoration. More Embassy Row than Accountant’s Row, although there was no sign of any more formal function on any of the houses than as homes. The exception was a single city block stuck almost incongruously in the middle of the double rows of brownstones, a block that contained not houses but something more like a compound.

High wrought-iron gates, or gates of some material that seemed like it, blocked vehicle-sized entrances at both ends of the block, and between was a long and quite tall brick wall of the same complexion as the facing houses. Looking in through either gate’s lattice work revealed a semicircular driveway around a formal garden leading to a single large brick structure two stories high but fully a third of the block in area. It might have been an old-style mansion house or the headquarters of the local historical society.

Murphy thought it looked like a funeral home.

In the dwindling light of dusk it appeared as a remote chunk of near pitch darkness, out of place here or most anywhere in spite of the attempts to blend in using the brick and iron facade. It barely looked inhabited, but the light from two upper-floor windows was bleeding through drawn curtains, and the indirect lighting illuminated the walkway up to the rather imposing pale yellow front door. He had no doubt, though, that there were cameras galore embedded in or perhaps peering over that wall, and all sorts of security monitors covering every square millimeter of the grounds. The mere fact that it wasn’t already victim to hordes of robbers attested to that.

Murphy really didn’t know why he was there, not exactly. Concern for the girls, certainly, even though they might well be far from the city by now and nowhere near this mausoleum, and possibly curiosity as well. These people had used him many times; now he thought it was about time to stop just counting the money and taking the rest for granted.

Most of all, he didn’t like the way things had been handled. After all this time, he deserved a bit more than going down to the local monkey house and having his charges snatched right in front of him. There was simply no call to do it, particularly since they knew he knew who the client was and even where in the city they dwelled.

If they were aware of him at all at this point, then they certainly would recognize him.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.