No Grave for March by M. E. Chaber

Author:M. E. Chaber
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2024-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 7

That night I would have welcomed Frieda and a bottle of brandy, or anybody and a bottle of brandy. As it was, I had just the brandy. As soon as I was able to get away from Sarny, I’d gone straight to the hotel, stopping only to pick up the bottle. I didn’t feel like eating. As soon as I reached my room, I poured a water glass half full of brandy and downed it in one gulp. The burning in my throat was welcome as a sort of minor self-punishment.

I finished the bottle in a Couple of hours. By that time I wasn’t feeling much pain, but I could still see the face of Herr Freiheit shining in front of me. I gravely considered flinging the empty bottle at the face, but finally dismissed it as being undignified for a special agent of the United States of America.

Reminding myself of my official capacity reminded me of Major General Sam Roberts and I spent a pleasant half hour running over the various things I would have liked to have happen to him. But it didn’t help much. I still slept badly.

I was up fairly early and had breakfast in the hotel. I tried to read a couple of newspapers, but I just couldn’t get past the first few sentences in any of the stories. I called Sarny and asked him if he had any objections to my spending the day in a park with a pretty girl. He said no and didn’t even ask who the girl was.

Greta Brooks arrived promptly at eleven. She was wearing shorts and a blouse. Her figure was even better than I had thought that first day. She carried a covered wicker basket. A red and white kerchief was tied over her head. For a minute, as she stood there in the doorway, it was difficult not to believe that I was back in America, keeping a date with an American girl.

“Ready?” she asked.

I nodded.

“I think I have everything,” she said. She lifted the cover on one end of the basket. Nestled among the sandwiches and other mysterious edibles, there was a squat bottle of brandy. “Like it?” .

“Love it,” I said promptly. “No picnic 1s complete without one. Shall we go?”

She nodded. We went downstairs and out of the hotel.

“It’s such a beautiful day,” she said eagerly.

It was. The sky was a bright blue, with a few lacy clouds to enhance the blueness. But as far as I was concerned the day was made more beautiful by the girl striding along beside me. I glanced down at her. In a city where every other face was grim or guarded, hers was eager and unlined.

“Would I be guilty of political diversion if I said you’re beautiful?” I asked lightly.

She laughed. It was a spontaneous, gay sound, with no undertones. It seemed to me that it was the first free laughter I'd heard since leaving Denver. Everyone else, from Sam Roberts to Anton Sarny, laughed as if they’d just finished writing something on the lavatory walls in Buckingham Palace.

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.