"EB - Edward L. Ferman - The Best From Fantasy & Science Fiction 23rd EditionUC - SS" - читать интересную книгу автора (Fantasy & Science Fiction Magazine)

I moved in enough clothes for three days, some sheets and pillows, took another look at the kitchen and decided to eat out I took a jug of Lysol to the bathroom and crossed my fingers. Miss Tremaine brought up the bank statement and humphed a few tunes.
Number five bad one door and four windows—identical to the other nine Lorraine assured me. The door had a heavy-duty bolt that couldn't be fastened or unfastened from the outside. The window beside the door didn't open at all and wasn't intended to. The bathroom and kitchen windows cranked out and were tall and skinny, about twenty-four by six. The other living room window, opposite the door, slid upward. The iron bars bolted to the frame were so rusted I doubted if they could be removed without ripping out the whole window. It appeared Andrew Detweiler had another perfect alibi after all—along with the rest of the world,
I stood outside number seven suddenly feeling like a teen-ager about to pick up his first date. I could hear Detweiler's typewriter tickety-ticking away inside. Okay, Mallory, this is what you've been breaking your neck on for a week.
I knocked on the door.
I heard the typewriter stop ticking and the scrape of a chair being scooted back. I didn't hear anything else for fifteen or twenty seconds, and I wondered what he was doing. Then the bolt was drawn and the door opened.
He was buttoning his shin. That must have been the delay: he wouldn't want anyone to see him with his shut off. Everything Td been told about him was true. He wasn't very tall; the top of his head came to my nose. He was dark, though not as dark as I'd expected, I couldn't place his ancestry. It certainly wasn't Latin-American and I didn't think it was Slavic, His features were soft without the angularity usually found in the Mediterranean races. His hair wasn't quite black. It wasn't exactly long and it wasn't exactly short His clothes were nondescript. Everything about him was neutral—except
The Detweiler Boy
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his face. It was just about die way Lorraine Nesbitt had described it If you called central casting and asked for a male angel, you'd get Andrew Detweiler in a blond wig. His body was slim and well-formed—from where I was standing I couldn't see the hump and you'd never know there was one. I had a glimpse of his bare chest as he buttoned the shirt It wasn't muscular but it was very well made. He was very healthy-looking—pink and flushed with health, though slightly pale as if he didn't get out in the sun much. His dark eyes were astounding. If you blocked out the rest of the face, leaving nothing but the eyes, you'd swear he was no more than four years old. You've seen little kids with those big, guileless, unguarded, inquiring eyes, haven't you?
"Yes?" he asked.
I smiled. "Hello, I'm Bert Mallory. I just moved in to number five. Miss Nesbitt tells me you like to play gin."
"Yes," be grinned, "Come on in."
He turned to move out of my way and I saw the hump. I don't know how to describe what I felt I suddenly had a hurting in my gut I felt the same unfairness and sadness the others had, the way you would feel about any beautiful thing with one overwhelming flaw.
Tm not disturbing you, am I? I heard the typewriter." The room was indeed identical to mine, though it looked a hundred per cent more livable. I couldn't put my finger on what he had done to it to make it that way. Maybe it was just the senudarkness. He had the curtains tightly closed and one lamp lit beside the typewriter.
"Yeah, I was working on a story, but I'd rather play gin.'' He grinned, open and artless. "If I could make money playing gin, I wouldn't write."
"Lots of people make money playing gin."
"Oh, I couldn't I'm too unlucky."
He certainly had a right to say that, but there was no self-pity, just an observation. Then he looked at me with slightly distressed eyes. "You... ah... didn't want to play for money, did you?"
"Not at alL" I said and his eyes cleared. "What kind of stories do you write?"
"Oh, all kinds." He shrugged. "Fantasy mostly."
"Do you sell them?"
"Most of 'em."
40
Tom Ream?
"I don't recall seeing your name anywhere. Miss Nesbitt said it was Andrew Detwefler?"
He nodded. '1 use another name. You probably wouldn't know it either. It's not exactly a household word." His eyes said he'd really rather not tell me what it was. He had a slight accent, a sort of soft slowness, not exactly a drawl and not exactly Deep South. He shoved the typewriter over and pulled out a deck of cards.
"Where're you from?" I asked. "I don't place the accent"
He grinned and shuffled the cards. "North Carolina. Back in die Blue Ridge."
We cut and I dealt "How long have you been in Hoflywood?"
"About two months.1*
"How do you like it?"
He grinned his beguiling grin and picked up my discard. "Ifi very . . .unusual. Have you lived here long, Mr. Maliory?"
"Bert AD my life. I was born in Ingtewood. My mother still fives there."
"It must be ... unusual f . . to live in the same place an your life."
"Yon move around a lot?"
"Yeah. Gin."
I laughed. 1 thought you were unlucky."
"If we were playing for money, I wouldn't be able to do anything right"
We played gin the rest of the afternoon and talked-talked a lot Detweiler seemed eager to talk or, at least, eager to have someone to talk with. He never told me anything that would connect him to nine deaths, mostly about where he'd been, things he'd read. He read a lot, just about anything he could get his hands on. I got the impression he hadn't really lived Me so much as he'd read it, that all the things he knew about had never physically affected him. He was like an insulated island. Life flowed around him but never touched him, I wondered if the hump on his back made that much difference, if it made him such a green monkey he'd had to retreat into his insular existence. Practically everyone I had talked to liked him, mixed with varying portions of pity, to be sure, but liking nevertheless. Harry Spinner liked him, but had discovered something "peculiar" about him. Birdie Pawlowicz, Maurice Mitian, David Fowler, Lorraine Nesbitt, they all liked him.
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And, God damn it, I liked him too.
At midnight I was still awake, sitting in number five in my jockey shorts with the light out and the door open. I listened to the ticking of the Detweiler boy's typewriter and the muffled roar of Los Angeles. And thought and thought and thought. And got nowhere.
Someone walked by the door, quietly and carefully. I leaned my head out It was Johnny Peacock. He moved down the line of bungalows silent as a shadow. He turned south when he reached the sidewalk. Going to Selma or the Boulevard to turn a trick and make a few extra bucks. Lorraine must keep tight purse strings. Better watch it, kid. If she finds out, you'll be back on the streets again. And you haven't got too many years left where you can make good money by just gettin' it up.
I dropped in at the office for a while Friday morning and checked the first-of-the-month bills. Miss Tremaine had a list of new prospective clients. "Tell everyone I can't get to anything till Monday."
She nodded in disapproval. "Mr. Bloomfeld called."
"Did he get my report?"
"Yes. He was very pleased, but he wants die man's name."
"Tell him Fll get back on it Monday."
"Mrs. Bushyager called. Her sister and Mr. Bushyager are still missing."