Читать книгу The Neighbour - Dean Koontz, Dean Koontz - Страница 5

Most mornings, our old man preferred a sandwich for breakfast, usually bacon and eggs on heavily buttered toast. In bad weather, he stood at the sink to eat, staring out at the small backyard, silent and remote, as though he must be pondering important philosophical issues—or planning a murder. On the nearby cutting board stood a mug of coffee. He held the sandwich in his right hand, a cigarette in his left, alternating between the two. When witness to this, I always hoped that in error he would take a bite of the cigarette or attempt to smoke the sandwich, but he never became confused.

The morning following the activity at the Clockenwall house, he ate instead on the back porch. When he descended the steps and went to work, I retrieved the empty coffee mug and ashtray that were balanced on the flat cap of the porch railing. While I washed them at the kitchen sink, Amalia served breakfast to our mother in the living room, where on the TV some movie star was being interviewed by a morning-show host, the two of them competing to see who had the phoniest laugh. Our mother had ordered fried potatoes, a cheese omelet, and a cup of canned fruit cocktail. She and the old man rarely ate at the same time and never wanted the same thing.

When Amalia returned to the kitchen, she said, “I think someone moved in next door during the night. My window was open, and a voice woke me, and then there were lights in all the rooms over there.”

Her bedroom was on the same side of our house as mine. I said, “I didn’t hear anybody. Saw the lights, someone moving around over there, just a shadow. But no Realtor has put up a sign yet.”

“Maybe they decided to rent the place instead of selling.”

“Moving in at three in the morning is kinda weird. Was it just one person or a family, or what?”

“I didn’t see anybody.”

“What about the voice?”

“Oh, that must have been a dream. There wasn’t anyone standing under my window. I thought someone called out from under my window, a man, but I must have been dreaming and woke up, because when I got out of bed and went to the window, no one was down there.”

I put place mats and flatware on the dinette table. While I made toast, burning the first two slices, Amalia scrambled eggs and fried slices of ham for our breakfast.