The Double Take by Roy Huggins

Author:Roy Huggins
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: マイコンテンツ
Published: 2011-01-27T05:07:15.681000+00:00

Chapter Seventeen

HEAT LAY OVER ME LIKE a thick web. I grunted and reached for the covers to throw them off. There weren't any. I started up, and my head moved eight inches and hit a steel brace in lint-filled springs. I lay back and remembered, and grinned without opening my mouth. I giggled and decided to yell “Hi, yo, Silver!” Just to see what would happen. Then I moved my head to look out across the floor. It made my head hurt and I decided to keep quiet. Sunlight was hot and motionless on an ancient red-and-green patterned carpet, and lying on the carpet by the edge of the bed there were a pair of lace panties and some high-heeled shoes. I thought about that for a while; then I heard a moan and the springs creaked. Probably quietly, but where I was it sounded like an elephant walking through the City Dump. I took another look at the panties. They didn't seem very large. I looked at my watch. It was nine o'clock. I rolled out from under the bed and stood up. There was a woman lying on the bed, the covers pushed into a twisted pile at the foot. She wore two rings on her left hand, a nice-looking single rope of pearls, and nothing else. She was tanned all over as if she was used to lying around with nothing on. She was breathing heavily through her mouth and she looked like someone about to give birth to a nine-pound hangover. A tangle of blond hair with the wet gold brightness of a new-peeled willow branch lay about her shoulders.

There was a long blue evening dress draped over a chair and a beaded bag lying on it. I walked over to it. My legs moved lightly, and I felt like twenty pounds of feathers. I opened the purse. There was a driver's license in it issued to Miss Irene Neher, with an address on Buckley in Brentwood. There were also three plastic blue chips with a complicated design on them. I dropped one of the chips into my pocket and put the license back and closed the purse.

My coat was lying on another chair near the window. The window was still open, but the knotted sheets were gone. I put on the coat and walked over to the door. It was bolted on the inside. I went over to the bed and untangled a thin cover and pulled it over the lovely brown body, then I went back and unlocked the door and stepped out. The hall was empty and dark. It was an old house with high ceilings and colorless wallpaper and a broad circular stairway going down. There was a warm droning quiet in the place like the quiet of a summer meadow. I walked down the stairs into a circular hall with a high white door leading to the outside. On the right there was another opening, closed now by heavy sliding doors. I walked quietly toward the white door.

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