Читать книгу Out of Mind - Michael Burke - Страница 17

9

I lay awake much of the night trying to make sense of my evening with Vera. An affair, a letter, a scary nutcase with a gun, all in a dead factory watched over by silent machines. I finally fell asleep dreaming of a land of pipes, pipes that moved, that stood on end, and danced and spoke in hollowed voices. I found myself inside a huge sewer pipe. An envelope floated before me, just out of reach. I chased it through an endless tunnel. The sides shrank around me as I ran, then crawled, then slid on my stomach through a pipe no larger around than my chest. I sat upright, with a start, pushing the dream away. I wondered if I would be able to find that letter, which, foolishly, I’d stuffed in some pipe somewhere in the midst of vast pipe graveyard.

The sun had crept over the horizon when Doctor Dollar’s receptionist, June of the shining blond hair, called. She said he could meet me as soon as he took care of his paying clients for the day. I ignored the hint, and said I would be by after lunch. I was sure that one of these days I’d be able to send a big job in his direction. I doubt the Doctor expected that, but he was too nice to tell me to add up my own numbers. When I arrived at his office, the waiting room was empty and the Doctor was alone in his office.

“Good day, Doctor.”

Henry Cadman rose from behind his desk and put out his hand. “Sorry I missed you the other day. Blue, how have you been?”

“Fine, Doctor, and you’re looking good.” He’d lost some of his extra pounds and the old tan suit that had struggled to contain him for the past year or so was proudly showing a waistline.

“Yes. I know. Started exercising—can you imagine such a thing?”

“No. Afraid I can’t. But you’re a good advertisement for it.”

Tired of the small talk, the Doctor sat back down and looked at the notes before him. “So when did this interest in kittens come over you?”