The Moonlight Read Online Free PDF

side.
    What the hell was it?  What had happened in this room?  And when?  Somebody, in the distant past, had made a hell of a mess.
    He took a luggage rack out of the closet, set it under the window, and laid his open suitcase across it.  He hung his coats and trousers in the wardrobe and his shirts and underwear in the chest of drawers.
    There was an unopened carton of cigarettes at the bottom of the suitcase—you never knew what emergencies could befall you in foreign parts, and he put this in the drawer of his night table, upon which rested a reading lamp with a suspiciously blackened bulb and his newly liberated ashtray.  He kicked off his shoes and lay down on the bed, taking a pack of cigarettes from his shirt pocket.
    When he looked inside, he realized he had smoked the last one, so he sat up, opened the drawer of his night table, peeled up the flap of the carton with his thumb and took out a fresh pack.  He lay down again and lit the cigarette with a paper match.  As the smoke filled his lungs he began to relax.
    It was almost five o’clock.  What would he do for dinner?  Walk into Brookville, he imagined, and try that seafood place.  Then buy the necessities at the grocery store and walk them back.  It probably wasn’t more than a mile each way and the road was straight, so he was entitled to hope he wouldn’t get lost.
    It had been a good day, he decided.  A long day—he had had to catch red eye flight from San Francisco—but one that had required no complicated decisions and was ending with him sleeping under a roof he actually owned.  It was okay if he hadn’t inherited the Waldorf Astoria, because at least it was his.  It would bring in something, enough to help him get his life back on track.
    . . . . .
    “You’re a new face,” the waitress said, smiling.  She was between twenty-five and thirty, a dishwater blonde with a knowing face and no wedding ring.  The body under her rayon uniform, while not heavy, suggested a generosity that made Phil smile back.
    “I’m one of the old established families.  I’ve lived up the street from here for about four hours now.”
    They both laughed.  Phil was sitting in the designated smoking section of the Lobster Pot restaurant, which was empty enough that the waitress probably didn’t feel too many demands on her time.
    “What’s ‘Manhattan Clam Chowder’?” Phil asked, studying the menu.  He hadn’t had a friendly conversation with a member of the opposite sex in longer than he cared to think about, so he felt an impulse to string this one out.
    The waitress shrugged.
    “If you like tomato soup, you’ll like it,” she said.  “Otherwise, stick with the original.  What’s the trouble—don’t they have clam chowder where you come from.”
    “Only in cans.”
    It occurred to him that he didn’t even know if that was true.  Why had he never eaten seafood in California?  What had he been doing with his time?
    “Why don’t you order for me,” he went on, closing his menu.  “Anything but lobster.”
    This seemed to please her.  “You like salad or cole slaw?” she asked.  “You care for a drink first?”
    “Sure.”
    She brought him a gin and tonic and then, about twenty minutes later, a plate with more food on it than had been seen in living memory.
    “That’s bluefish,” she said.  “It tastes better than it looks. And those are potato pancakes.”  She set down a bowl of salad that looked like it had been made by Salvador Dali.
    “Cook makes a nice ranch dressing.  You’ll like it.  You want to order dessert now or you want to think about it?  We got apple pie, blueberry pie, chocolate mousse cake, cheese cake, crème caramel, and ice cream—chocolate, vanilla, strawberry, rum raisin and mint.  Dessert’s included. You want regular coffee, decaf, or tea?”
    He didn’t know what to say, particularly since it seemed to matter so much to her.  It was with some difficulty that he fought down the