Quest for Anna Klein, The Read Online Free
Author: Thomas H. Cook
and stable families, a great cloth unraveling.
As he always did in an unfamiliar setting, Danforth took a moment to locate himself, take in his surroundings. He noted the hours of accumulated cigarette smoke that had gathered and now curled beneath the barâs pressed-tin ceiling. The smell of bar food hung lower and more heavily: grease, ketchup, a hint of onion. A group of regulars occupied the stools at the front, manual laborers clothed head to foot in flannel, broad shoulders slightly hunched, big hands curled around mugs of beer. Dan-forth could not imagine what they talked about in the gloomy light. But at least these men had jobs, unlike those whoâd taken up residence in the city parks or erected shantytowns along the river. There was an explosive quality to the enforced idleness of unemployed men, Danforth thought, something both inert and volatile, like a damp fuse drying. They would rip down a forest to make a campfire, and who could stand in the winds that blew then? Certainly not himself, Danforth knew, nor any of his well-heeled kind.
The barman gave him a quizzical look.
Danforth nodded toward the empty tables at the back.
âAnywhere you want,â the barman said, then returned to the regulars, who were clearly more his sort â wore caps instead of hats, frayed woolen jackets rather than Danforthâs immaculate cashmere.
Clayton had suggested the place and Danforth hadnât bothered to question it. Eighteenth Street wasnât far from Union Square, the offi ces of Danforth Imports. Still, the Old Town Bar seemed a strange choice, and he was surprised that Clayton even knew about it. And yet that was precisely the part of his friend that he both enjoyed and admired, that from out of nowhere he would demonstrate a knowledge or familiarity heâd previously kept concealed. He gambled in back-alley crap games, that muchDanforth knew, and seemed to enjoy an occasional excursion into the edgier reaches of the city, Harlem dance clubs and the basement bars along the waterfront. At college, heâd regularly smuggled bootleg hooch into their fraternity house, cases of it borne up the stairs by men who scarcely spoke English and dealt only in cash. The man who had slouched at the corner of Sixty-fifth and Madison had no doubt been one of Claytonâs shadowy army of demimonde contacts.
He walked back toward a table heâd selected almost the instant heâd come into the bar, in much the same way a hunted man might locate the nearest exit. He knew that there was something primitive in this, something not altogether rational, something he thought might serve a soldier better than an importer. For that reason, heâd found a secret anticipation in the rattling rumors of European war, even an obscene but reflex-ive hope that they might prove true. It was the hope of a young man, he knew, and a foolish one at that. The two uncles buried in the American cemetery at Romagne remindent him that war could prove fatal, so any time he allowed himself to anticipate it with anything but dread, he also made himself recall the long rows of white crosses heâd seen in that sweeping burial ground. But even in this memory, a glimmer of warâs romance managed to peek through: he also recalled the visitorsâ book at Romagne, how in so many distinctly different hands, the French had written the simple, elegant
merci.
A barmaid swam out of the gloom a few minutes after he took his seat, a woman clearly recruited from the kitchen staff. The greasy apron proved that, along with the damp washcloth that hung around her neck.
âWhat can I get you?â she asked.
The Old Town Bar was no place for a dry martini.
âScotch,â Danforth said. âStraight up.â
While he waited, Danforth went over the dayâs usual businessproblems: delays in shipments, boats waylaid by storms, and always, always, overland disruptions in Manchuria. In the Orient, the actual nature of
As he always did in an unfamiliar setting, Danforth took a moment to locate himself, take in his surroundings. He noted the hours of accumulated cigarette smoke that had gathered and now curled beneath the barâs pressed-tin ceiling. The smell of bar food hung lower and more heavily: grease, ketchup, a hint of onion. A group of regulars occupied the stools at the front, manual laborers clothed head to foot in flannel, broad shoulders slightly hunched, big hands curled around mugs of beer. Dan-forth could not imagine what they talked about in the gloomy light. But at least these men had jobs, unlike those whoâd taken up residence in the city parks or erected shantytowns along the river. There was an explosive quality to the enforced idleness of unemployed men, Danforth thought, something both inert and volatile, like a damp fuse drying. They would rip down a forest to make a campfire, and who could stand in the winds that blew then? Certainly not himself, Danforth knew, nor any of his well-heeled kind.
The barman gave him a quizzical look.
Danforth nodded toward the empty tables at the back.
âAnywhere you want,â the barman said, then returned to the regulars, who were clearly more his sort â wore caps instead of hats, frayed woolen jackets rather than Danforthâs immaculate cashmere.
Clayton had suggested the place and Danforth hadnât bothered to question it. Eighteenth Street wasnât far from Union Square, the offi ces of Danforth Imports. Still, the Old Town Bar seemed a strange choice, and he was surprised that Clayton even knew about it. And yet that was precisely the part of his friend that he both enjoyed and admired, that from out of nowhere he would demonstrate a knowledge or familiarity heâd previously kept concealed. He gambled in back-alley crap games, that muchDanforth knew, and seemed to enjoy an occasional excursion into the edgier reaches of the city, Harlem dance clubs and the basement bars along the waterfront. At college, heâd regularly smuggled bootleg hooch into their fraternity house, cases of it borne up the stairs by men who scarcely spoke English and dealt only in cash. The man who had slouched at the corner of Sixty-fifth and Madison had no doubt been one of Claytonâs shadowy army of demimonde contacts.
He walked back toward a table heâd selected almost the instant heâd come into the bar, in much the same way a hunted man might locate the nearest exit. He knew that there was something primitive in this, something not altogether rational, something he thought might serve a soldier better than an importer. For that reason, heâd found a secret anticipation in the rattling rumors of European war, even an obscene but reflex-ive hope that they might prove true. It was the hope of a young man, he knew, and a foolish one at that. The two uncles buried in the American cemetery at Romagne remindent him that war could prove fatal, so any time he allowed himself to anticipate it with anything but dread, he also made himself recall the long rows of white crosses heâd seen in that sweeping burial ground. But even in this memory, a glimmer of warâs romance managed to peek through: he also recalled the visitorsâ book at Romagne, how in so many distinctly different hands, the French had written the simple, elegant
merci.
A barmaid swam out of the gloom a few minutes after he took his seat, a woman clearly recruited from the kitchen staff. The greasy apron proved that, along with the damp washcloth that hung around her neck.
âWhat can I get you?â she asked.
The Old Town Bar was no place for a dry martini.
âScotch,â Danforth said. âStraight up.â
While he waited, Danforth went over the dayâs usual businessproblems: delays in shipments, boats waylaid by storms, and always, always, overland disruptions in Manchuria. In the Orient, the actual nature of
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