[Havana-Drained Of It's Color Download Epub Mobi Pdf Fb2

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<div>It was about eleven o'clock in the morning, mid October, with thesun not shining and a look of hard wet rain in the clearness of thefoothills. I was wearing my powder-blue suit, with dark blue shirt, tie anddisplay handkerchief, black brogues, black wool socks with dark blueclocks on them. I was neat, clean, shaved and sober, and I didn't care whoknew it. I was everything the well-dressed private detective ought to be.I was calling on four million dollars.</div><div></div><div></div><div>The main hallway of the Sternwood place was two stories high. Over theentrance doors, which would have let in a troop of Indian elephants,there was a broad stained-glass panel showing a knight in dark armorrescuing a lady who was tied to a tree and didn't have any clothes onbut some very long and convenient hair. The knight had pushed the vizorof his helmet back to be sociable, and he was fiddling with the knots onthe ropes that tied the lady to the tree and not getting anywhere. Istood there and thought that if I lived in the house, I would sooner orlater have to climb up there and help him. He didn't seem to be reallytrying.</div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div>Havana-Drained of it's Color download epub mobi pdf fb2</div><div></div><div>Download File: https://t.co/A3jqCCPlRe </div><div></div><div></div><div>There were French doors at the back of the hall, beyond them a widesweep of emerald grass to a white garage, in front of which a slim darkyoung chauffeur in shiny black leggings was dusting a maroon Packardconvertible. Beyond the garage were some decorative trees trimmed ascarefully as poodle dogs. Beyond them a large greenhouse with a domedroof. Then more trees and beyond everything the solid, uneven,comfortable line of the foothills.</div><div></div><div></div><div>On the east side of the hall a free staircase, tile-paved, rose to agallery with a wrought-iron railing and another piece of stained-glassromance. Large hard chairs with rounded red plush seats were backed intothe vacant spaces of the wall round about. They didn't look as ifanybody had ever sat in them. In the middle of the west wall there was abig empty fireplace with a brass screen in four hinged panels, and overthe fireplace a marble mantel with cupids at the corners. Above themantel there was a large oil portrait, and above the portrait twobullet-torn or moth-eaten cavalry pennants crossed in a glass frame. Theportrait was a stiffly posed job of an officer in full regimentals ofabout the time of the Mexican war. The officer had a neat blackimperial, black mustachios, hot hard coal-black eyes, and the generallook of a man it would pay to get along with. I thought this might beGeneral Sternwood's grandfather. It could hardly be the General himself,even though I had heard he was pretty far gone in years to have a coupleof daughters still in the dangerous twenties.</div><div></div><div></div><div>She was twenty or so, small and delicately put together, but she lookeddurable. She wore pale blue slacks and they looked well on her. Shewalked as if she were floating. Her hair was a fine tawny wave cut muchshorter than the current fashion of pageboy tresses curled in at thebottom. Her eyes were slate-gray, and had almost no expression when theylooked at me. She came over near me and smiled with her mouth and shehad little sharp predatory teeth, as white as fresh orange pith and asshiny as porcelain. They glistened between her thin too taut lips. Herface lacked color and didn't look too healthy.</div><div></div><div></div><div>"That's a funny name." She bit her lip and turned her head a little andlooked at me along her eyes. Then she lowered her lashes until theyalmost cuddled her cheeks and slowly raised them again, like a theatercurtain. I was to get to know that trick. That was supposed to make meroll over on my back with all four paws in the air.</div><div></div><div></div><div>"You didn't say anything. You're just a big tease." She put a thumb upand bit it. It was a curiously shaped thumb, thin and narrow like anextra finger, with no curve in the first joint. She bit it and sucked itslowly, turning it around in her mouth like a baby with a comforter.</div><div></div><div></div><div>"You're awfully tall," she said. Then she giggled with secret merriment.Then she turned her body slowly and lithely, without lifting her feet.Her hands dropped limp at her sides. She tilted herself towards me onher toes. She fell straight back into my arms. I had to catch her or lether crack her head on the tessellated floor. I caught her under her armsand she went rubber-legged on me instantly. I had to hold her close tohold her up. When her head was against my chest she screwed it aroundand giggled at me.</div><div></div><div></div><div>It didn't seem to bother him. He was a tall, thin, silver man, sixty orclose to it or a little past it. He had blue eyes as remote as eyescould be. His skin was smooth and bright and he moved like a man withvery sound muscles. He walked slowly across the floor towards us and thegirl jerked away from me. She flashed across the room to the foot of thestairs and went up them like a deer. She was gone before I could draw along breath and let it out.</div><div></div><div></div><div>We went out at the French doors and along a smooth red-flagged path thatskirted the far side of the lawn from the garage. The boyish-lookingchauffeur had a big black and chromium sedan out now and was dustingthat. The path took us along to the side of the greenhouse and thebutler opened a door for me and stood aside. It opened into a sort ofvestibule that was about as warm as a slow oven. He came in after me,shut the outer door, opened an inner door and we went through that. Thenit was really hot. The air was thick, wet, steamy and larded with thecloying smell of tropical orchids in bloom. The glass walls and roofwere heavily misted and big drops of moisture splashed down on theplants. The light had an unreal greenish color, like light filteredthrough an aquarium tank. The plants filled the place, a forest of them,with nasty meaty leaves and stalks like the newly washed fingers of deadmen. They smelled as overpowering as boiling alcohol under a blanket.</div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div>"I used to like mine with champagne. The champagne as cold as ValleyForge and about a third of a glass of brandy beneath it. You may takeyour coat off, sir. It's too hot in here for a man with blood in hisveins."</div><div></div><div></div><div>I stood up and peeled off my coat and got a handkerchief out and moppedmy face and neck and the backs of my wrists. St. Louis in August hadnothing on that place. I sat down again and I felt automatically for acigarette and then stopped. The old man caught the gesture and smiledfaintly.</div><div></div><div></div><div>"A nice state of affairs when a man has to indulge his vices by proxy,"he said dryly. "You are looking at a very dull survival of a rathergaudy life, a cripple paralyzed in both legs and with only half of hislower belly. There's very little that I can eat and my sleep is so closeto waking that it is hardly worth the name. I seem to exist largely onheat, like a newborn spider, and the orchids are an excuse for the heat.Do you like orchids?"</div><div></div><div></div><div>I stared at him with my mouth open. The soft wet heat was like a pallaround us. The old man nodded, as if his neck was afraid of the weightof his head. Then the butler came pushing back through the jungle with ateawagon, mixed me a brandy and soda, swathed the copper ice bucket witha damp napkin, and went away softly among the orchids. A door opened andshut behind the jungle.</div><div></div><div></div><div>"Sure, but there's very little to tell. I'm thirty-three years old, wentto college once and can still speak English if there's any demand forit. There isn't much in my trade. I worked for Mr. Wilde, the DistrictAttorney, as an investigator once. His chief investigator, a man namedBernie Ohls, called me and told me you wanted to see me. I'm unmarriedbecause I don't like policemen's wives."</div><div></div><div></div><div>"I'm told you are a widower and have two young daughters, both prettyand both wild. One of them has been married three times, the last timeto an ex-bootlegger who went in the trade by the name of Rusty Regan.That's all I heard, General."</div><div></div><div></div><div>He smiled his faint economical smile. "It seems I do too. I'm very fondof Rusty. A big curly-headed Irishman from Clonmel, with sad eyes and asmile as wide as Wilshire Boulevard. The first time I saw him I thoughthe might be what you are probably thinking he was, an adventurer whohappened to get himself wrapped up in some velvet."</div><div></div><div></div><div>The old man looked at me woodenly. "He went away, a month ago. Abruptly,without a word to anyone. Without saying good-by to me. That hurt alittle, but he had been raised in a rough school. I'1l hear from him oneof these days. Meantime I am being blackmailed again."</div><div></div><div></div><div>I took the envelope off his knees and sat down with it again. I wipedoff the palms of my hands and turned it around. It was addressed toGeneral Guy Sternwood, 3765 Alta Brea Crescent, West Hollywood,California. The address was in ink, in the slanted printing engineersuse. The envelope was slit. I opened it up and took out a brown card andthree slips of stiff paper. The card was of thin brown linen, printed ingold: "Mr. Arthur Gwynn Geiger." No address. Very small in the lowerleft-hand corner: "Rare Books and De Luxe Editions." I turned the cardover. More of the slanted printing on the back. "Dear Sir: In spite ofthe legal uncollectibility of the enclosed, which frankly representgambling debts, I assume you might wish them honored. Respectfully, A.G. Geiger."</div><div></div><div></div><div>I looked at the slips of stiffish white paper. They were promissorynotes filled out in ink, dated on several dates early in the monthbefore, September. "On Demand I promise to pay to Arthur Gwynn Geiger orOrder the sum of One Thousand Dollars ($1000.00) without interest. ValueReceived. Carmen Sternwood."</div><div></div><div></div><div>"I think not. I think they go their separate and slightly divergentroads to perdition. Vivian is spoiled, exacting, smart and quiteruthless. Carmen is a child who likes to pull wings off flies. Neitherof them has any more moral sense than a cat. Neither have I. NoSternwood ever had. Proceed."</div><div></div><div></div><div>"Vivian went to good schools of the snob type and to college. Carmenwent to half a dozen schools of greater and greater liberality, andended up where she started. I presume they both had, and still have, allthe usual vices. If I sound a little sinister as a parent, Mr. Marlowe,it is because my hold on life is too slight to include any Victorianhypocrisy." He leaned his head back and closed his eyes, then openedthem again suddenly. "I need not add that a man who indulges inparenthood for the first time at the age of fifty-four deserves all hegets."</div><div></div><div> 795a8134c1</div>