Tanner's Virgin Read Online Free Page B
Author: Lawrence Block
âNot a collector, are you?â I admitted that I wasnât. He grunted and resumed dipping coins. I thanked the clerk on the way out and called the buildingâs owner from a booth down the block.
A voice assured me the man was out and no one knew when he might be returning. I thought for a moment, then called again and announced that I was an inquiry agent interested in the whereabouts of a former tenant. The same voice introduced itself as the owner. Evidently heâd been avoiding some tenant who wanted his office painted; landlords, after all, are the same the whole world over.
He told me what I wanted to know. A Mr. T. R. Smythe-Carson had taken a third-floor office under the name of Carradine Imports in late July, paid a monthâs rent in advance, left before the month was over, and provided no forwarding address.
For formâs sake, I looked for Smythe-Carson in the telephone directory. He wasnât there, and I wasnât surprised.
There are some nights when I envy those who sleep. I have not slept since World War 2.1, when a sliver of North Korean shrapnel entered my mind and found its way to something called the sleep center, whereupon I entered a state of permanent insomnia. I was eighteen when this happened, and by now I can barely remember what sleep was like.
In the past few years scientists have taken an interest in sleep. Theyâve been trying to determine just why people sleep, and what dreams do, and what happens when a person is prevented from sleeping and dreaming. I could probably answer a few of their questions. When a person is prevented from sleeping and dreaming he embraces a wide variety of lost causes, studies dozens of languages, eats five or six meals a day, and uses his life to furnish those elements of fantasy thatother men find in dreams. This may not be how it works for every absolute insomniac, but itâs how it works for the only absolute insomniac I know, and for the most part Iâm quite happy with it. After all, why waste eight hours a night sleeping when, with proper application, one can waste all twenty-four wide awake?
Yet there are times when sleep would be a pleasure, if only because it provides a subjectively speedy way to get from one day to the next when there is absolutely nothing else to do. This was one of those times. Nigel and Julia had repaired to their separate bedrooms. There was no one in London whom I wanted to see. The hunt for Smythe-Carson and Carradine would have to wait until morning. Meanwhileâ¦
Meanwhile what?
Meanwhile I bathed and shaved and put on reasonably clean clothes and drank tea with milk and sugar and fried up some eggs and bacon and read part of a collection of the Best Plays of 1954 (which were none too good) and stretched out on my back on the floor for twenty minutes of Yoga-style relaxation. This last involves flexing and relaxing muscle groups in turn, then blanking the mind through a variety of mental disciplines. The mind-blanking part of it was easier than usual this time because my mind was very nearly empty to begin with.
Then I read fifty pages of an early Eric Ambler novel, at which point I remembered how it ended. Then I picked up that morningâs copy of the London Times, which I had already read once, which is generally enough. I had a go at the bridge and chess columns and the garden news, and then I turned to the Personals.Halfway down the first column it occurred to me that I had a particular reason to check out the Personals, and halfway down the third column I found the reason.
I F Y OU A RE female, under 40, unmarried, intelligent, adventurous, free to travel, opportunity awaits you! Do not mention this ad to others but reply in person at Penzance Export, No. 31, Pelham Court, Marylebone.
âOf course itâs Smythe-Carson again,â Nigel said the next morning. âQuite the same sort of message, isnât it? Heâs stopped mentioning the high pay and
A voice assured me the man was out and no one knew when he might be returning. I thought for a moment, then called again and announced that I was an inquiry agent interested in the whereabouts of a former tenant. The same voice introduced itself as the owner. Evidently heâd been avoiding some tenant who wanted his office painted; landlords, after all, are the same the whole world over.
He told me what I wanted to know. A Mr. T. R. Smythe-Carson had taken a third-floor office under the name of Carradine Imports in late July, paid a monthâs rent in advance, left before the month was over, and provided no forwarding address.
For formâs sake, I looked for Smythe-Carson in the telephone directory. He wasnât there, and I wasnât surprised.
There are some nights when I envy those who sleep. I have not slept since World War 2.1, when a sliver of North Korean shrapnel entered my mind and found its way to something called the sleep center, whereupon I entered a state of permanent insomnia. I was eighteen when this happened, and by now I can barely remember what sleep was like.
In the past few years scientists have taken an interest in sleep. Theyâve been trying to determine just why people sleep, and what dreams do, and what happens when a person is prevented from sleeping and dreaming. I could probably answer a few of their questions. When a person is prevented from sleeping and dreaming he embraces a wide variety of lost causes, studies dozens of languages, eats five or six meals a day, and uses his life to furnish those elements of fantasy thatother men find in dreams. This may not be how it works for every absolute insomniac, but itâs how it works for the only absolute insomniac I know, and for the most part Iâm quite happy with it. After all, why waste eight hours a night sleeping when, with proper application, one can waste all twenty-four wide awake?
Yet there are times when sleep would be a pleasure, if only because it provides a subjectively speedy way to get from one day to the next when there is absolutely nothing else to do. This was one of those times. Nigel and Julia had repaired to their separate bedrooms. There was no one in London whom I wanted to see. The hunt for Smythe-Carson and Carradine would have to wait until morning. Meanwhileâ¦
Meanwhile what?
Meanwhile I bathed and shaved and put on reasonably clean clothes and drank tea with milk and sugar and fried up some eggs and bacon and read part of a collection of the Best Plays of 1954 (which were none too good) and stretched out on my back on the floor for twenty minutes of Yoga-style relaxation. This last involves flexing and relaxing muscle groups in turn, then blanking the mind through a variety of mental disciplines. The mind-blanking part of it was easier than usual this time because my mind was very nearly empty to begin with.
Then I read fifty pages of an early Eric Ambler novel, at which point I remembered how it ended. Then I picked up that morningâs copy of the London Times, which I had already read once, which is generally enough. I had a go at the bridge and chess columns and the garden news, and then I turned to the Personals.Halfway down the first column it occurred to me that I had a particular reason to check out the Personals, and halfway down the third column I found the reason.
I F Y OU A RE female, under 40, unmarried, intelligent, adventurous, free to travel, opportunity awaits you! Do not mention this ad to others but reply in person at Penzance Export, No. 31, Pelham Court, Marylebone.
âOf course itâs Smythe-Carson again,â Nigel said the next morning. âQuite the same sort of message, isnât it? Heâs stopped mentioning the high pay and
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