Читать книгу A Portal in Time - James A. Costa Jr. - Страница 22

Chapter 17

Needing to freshen up, Gary gathered his things, fished the comb from the bag and put it in his pocket. As he stepped into the hallway, towel over his shoulder, the smell of onions was thick enough to glue wallpaper. Starting for the bathroom, he saw someone emerge and head toward the back stairway. Shadowy at that far end of the hall, the man’s face would have been unrecognizable even if he had been facing Gary, but it was definitely a man and, if memory served him right, the same man Gary had run into the night before when he had come in from putting the garbage out. No doubt about it: the same stooped gait and hunched shoulders. The same air of secrecy, or so it seemed. Gary wondered if the man could be a Nazi spy. He remembered reading that there were many saboteurs in this country during those years before the Word War II. What organization was it that was so active at the time…the Bond? The Bund? Bund, yes, that was it.

Back in his room Gary slipped on his jacket and went out down the hall to Mrs. Harmon’s apartment. When she opened the door he was properly polite. “Sorry to bother you, Mrs. Harmon, but yesterday you mentioned a hot plate?”

“So I did, so I did. Step inside.” Wrapped in a maroon housecoat, ballooned behind with her hefty rump, she padded off in big, floppy, pink slippers into the kitchen. He heard a radio playing somewhere in the apartment. Moments later she returned, carrying the hot plate before her like a libation.