Things Beyond Midnight Read Online Free PDF

happiness. A white dazzle of dress and hair and teeth.
    Laurie was glad, because you couldn’t help liking Norma Jean. She thought about food. She was hungry. Time for din-din. She entered the coffee shop inside the lobby of the Grant (Carl’s Quickbites), picked out a stool near the end of the counter, sat down with her paper.
    She was reading about the ape when Clark came in, wearing a long frock coat and flowing tie. His vest was red velvet. He walked up to the counter, snatched her paper, riffled hastily through the pages.
    “Nothing in here about the renegades,” he growled. “Guess nobody cares how many boats get through. An outright shame, I say!”
    “I’m sorry you’re disturbed,” she said. “May I have my paper back?”
    “Sure.” And he gave her a crooked smile of apology. Utterly charming. A rogue to the tips of his polished boots. Dashing. Full of vigor.
    “What do you plan to do now?” she asked.
    “Nothing,” he said. “Frankly, I don’t give a damn who wins the war! Blue or Gray. I just care about living through it.” He scowled. “Still—when a bunch of scurvy renegades come gunrunning by night... well, I just get a little upset about it. Where are the patrol boats?”
    She smiled faintly. “I don’t know a thing about patrol boats.”
    “No, I guess you don’t, pretty lady.” And he kissed her cheek.
    “Your mustache tickles,” she said. “And you have bad breath.”
    This amused him. “So I’ve been told!”
    After he left, the waitress came to take her order. “Is the sea bass fresh?”
    “You bet.”
    Laurie ordered sea bass. “Dinner, or a la carte?” asked the waitress. She was chewing gum in a steady, circular rhythm.
    “Dinner. Thousand on the salad. Baked potato. Chives, but no sour cream.”
    “We got just butter.”
    “Butter will be fine,” said Laurie. “And ice tea to drink. Without lemon.”
    “Gotcha,” said the waitress.
    Laurie was reading the paper again when a man in forest green sat down on the stool directly next to her. His mustache was smaller than Clark’s. Thinner and smaller, but it looked very correct on him.
    “This seat taken?” he asked.
    “No, I’m quite alone.”
    “King Richards alone,” he said bitterly. “In Leopold’s bloody hands, somewhere in Austria. Chained to a castle wall like an animal! I could find him, but I don’t have enough men to attempt a rescue. I’d give my sword arm to free him!”
    “They call him the Lion-Hearted, don’t they?”
    The man in green nodded. He wore a feather in his cap, and had a longbow slung across his chest. “That’s because he has the heart of a lion. There’s not a man in the kingdom with half his courage.”
    “What about you? ”
    His smile dazzled. “Me? Why, mum, I’m just a poor archer. From the king’s forest.”
    She looked pensive. “I’d say you were a bit more than that.”
    “Perhaps.” His eyes twinkled merrily. “A bit more.”
    “Are you going to order?” she asked. “They have fresh sea bass.”
    “Red meat’s what I need. Burger. Blood-rare.”
    The waitress, taking his order, frowned at him. “I’m sorry, mister, but you’ll have to hang that thing over there.” She pointed to a clothes rack. “We don’t allow longbows at the counter.”
    He complied with the request, returning to wolf down his Carl-burger while Laurie nibbled delicately at her fish. He finished long before she did, flipped a tip to the counter from a coinsack at his waist.
    “I must away,” he told Laurie. And he kissed her hand. Nice gesture. Very typical of him.
    The waitress was pleased with the tip: a gold piece from the British Isles. “Some of these bums really stiff you,” she said, pocketing the coin. “They come in, order half the menu, end up leaving me a lousy dime! Hell, I couldn’t make it at this lousy job without decent tips. Couldn’t make the rent. I’d have my rosy rear kicked out.” She noticed that Laurie flushed at this.
    On the street, which