Ed McBain_Matthew Hope 12 Read Online Free PDF Page A

around the edges of the blinds. Sofa upholstered in a white fabric with great big red what looked
     like hibiscus blossoms printed on it. His eyes were getting accustomed to the gloom. The place looked a mess. Clothes strewn
     all over the floor, empty soda pop bottles and cans, cigarette butts brimming in ashtrays—he hadn’t known she’d started smoking
     again, a bad sign. He wondered if the place always looked like a shithouse, or was it just now? On the street outside, he
     heard a passing automobile. And another. He waited in the semidark stillness of the one room. Just that single window in the
     entire place, at the far end, the only source of light, and it covered with a blind. Figured the sofa had to open into a bed,
     else where was she sleeping?
    Door frame, no door on it, led to what he could see was a kitchen. Fridge, stove, countertop, no window, just a little cubicle
     the size of a phone booth laid on end, well, he was exaggerating. Still, he wouldn’t like to try holding a dinner party in
     there. He stepped into the room, saw a little round wooden table on the wall to his right, two chairs tucked under it. Kitchen
     was a bit bigger than he’d thought at first, but he still wouldn’t want to wine and dine the governor here.
    Pile of dirty dishes in the sink, another bad sign.
    Food already crusted on them, meant they’d been there a while, an even worse sign.
    He opened a door under the sink, found a lidded trash can, lifted the lid, peered into it. Three empty quart-sized ice cream
     containers, no other garbage. Things looking worse by the minute. He replaced the lid, closed the door, went to the fridge
     and opened it. Wilting head of lettuce, bar of margarine going lardy around the edges, container of milk smelling sour, half
     an orange shriveling, three unopened cans of Coca-Cola. He checked the ice cube trays. Hadn’t been refilled in a while, the
     cubes were shrinking away from the sides. He nearly jumped a mile in the air when he spotted the roach sitting like a spy
     on the countertop alongside the fridge.
    They called them palmetto bugs down here. Damn things could fly, he’d swear to God. Come right up into your face, you weren’t
     careful. Two, three inches long some of them, disgusting. There were roaches back in St. Louis, when he lived there, but nothing
     like what they had down here, man. He closed the refrigerator door. Bug didn’t move a muscle. Just sat there on the countertop
     watching him.
    Another car passed by outside.
    Real busy street here, oh yes, cars going by at least every hour or so, a virtual metropolitan thoroughfare. He just hoped
     one of them wouldn’t be
her
car, pulling into the parking lot, home from market, surprise!
    He figured that’s where she’d be, ten-thirty in the morning, probably down in Newtown, doing her marketing. He hoped to hell
     he was wrong. The roach—palmetto bug, my ass!—was still on the countertop, motionless, watching Warren as he went back into
     the main room of the unit, the living room/bedroom/dining room, he guessed you would call it. Red hibiscus sofa against the
     far wall, he walked to it, and leaned over it and opened the blinds, letting in sunlight.
    I had only one other witness, an optometrist named Dr. Oscar Nettleton, who defined himself as a professional engaged in the
     practice of examining the eye for defects and faults of refraction and prescribing corrective lenses or exercises but not
     drugs or surgery. He modestly asserted that he was Chairman of, and Distinguished Professor in, Calusa University’s Department
     of Vision Sciences. I elicited from him the information that Lainie Commins had seemed elated…
    “Objection, Your Honor.”
    “Overruled.”
    …and glowing with pride…
    “Objection.”
    “Overruled.”
    …and confident and very up…
    “Objection.”
    “Sustained. One or two commonsense impressions are quite enough for me, Mr. Hope.”
    …when she’d come to him this past April with