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Stephen King "Umney's Last Case"
The rains are over. The hills are still green and in the valley across the Hollywood
hills you can see snow on the high
mountains. The fur stores are advertising their annual sales. The call houses that
specialize in sixteen-year-old virgins
are doing a land-office business. And in Beverly Hills the jacaranda trees are
beginning to bloom.
Raymond Chandler, The Little Sister
I. The News from Peoria.
It was one of those spring mornings so L.A.-perfect you keep expecting to see that
little trademark
symbol--(R)--stamped on it somewhere. The exhaust of the vehicles passing on Sunset
smelled faintly of oleander, the
oleander was lightly perfumed with exhaust, and the sky overhead was as clear as a
hardshell Baptist's conscience.
Peoria Smith, the blind paperboy, was standing in his accustomed place on the corner
of Sunset and Laurel, and if that
didn't mean God was in His heaven and all was jake with the world, I didn't know what
did.
Yet since I'd swung my feet out of bed that morning at the unaccustomed hour of 7:30
a.m., things had felt a little
off-kilter, somehow; a tad woozy around the edges. It was only as I was shaving --or
at least showing those pesky
bristles the razor in an effort to scare them into submission--that I realized part of
the reason why. Although I'd been
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
up reading until at least two, I hadn't heard the Demmicks roll in, squiffed to the
earlobes and trading those snappy
one-liners that apparently form the basis of their marriage.
Nor had I heard Buster, and that was maybe even odder. Buster, the Demmicks' Welsh
Corgi, has a high-pitched bark
that goes through your head like slivers of glass, and he uses it as much as he can.
Also, he's the jealous type. He lets
loose with one of his shrill barking squalls every time George and Gloria clinch, and
when they aren't zinging each
other like a couple of vaudeville comedians, George and Gloria usually are clinching.
I've gone to sleep on more than
one occasion listening to them giggle while that mutt prances around their feet going
yarkyarkyark and wondering how
difficult it would be to strangle a muscular, medium-sized dog with a length of pianowire.
Last night, however, the
Demmicks' apartment had been as quiet as the grave. It was passing strange, but a long
way from earth-shattering; the
Demmicks weren't exactly your perfect life-on-a-timetable couple at the best of times.
Peoria Smith was all right, though--chipper as a chipmunk, just as always, and he'd
recognized me by my walk even
though it was at least an hour before my usual time. He was wearing a baggy CalTech
sweatshirt that came down to his
thighs and a pair of corduroy knickers that showed off his scabby knees. His hated
white cane leaned casually against
the side of the card-table he did business on.
``Say, Mr. Umney! Howza kid?''
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Peoria's dark glasses glinted in the morning sunlight, and as he turned toward the
sound of my step with my copy of the
L.A. Times held up in front of him, I had a momentary unsettling thought: it was as if
someone had drilled two big
black holes into his face. I shivered the thought off my back, thinking that maybe the
time had come to cut out the
before-bedtime shot of rye. Either that or double the dose.
Hitler was on the front of the Times, as he so often was these days. This time it was
something about Austria. I thought,
and not for the first time, how at home that pale face and limp forelock would have
looked on a post-office bulletin
board.
``The kid is just about okay, Peoria,'' I said. `Ìn fact, the kid is as fine as fresh
paint on an outhouse wall.''
I dropped a dime into the Corona box resting atop Peoria's stack of newspapers.
Stephen King "Umney's Last Case"
The rains are over. The hills are still green and in the valley across the Hollywood
hills you can see snow on the high
mountains. The fur stores are advertising their annual sales. The call houses that
specialize in sixteen-year-old virgins
are doing a land-office business. And in Beverly Hills the jacaranda trees are
beginning to bloom.
Raymond Chandler, The Little Sister
I. The News from Peoria.
It was one of those spring mornings so L.A.-perfect you keep expecting to see that
little trademark
symbol--(R)--stamped on it somewhere. The exhaust of the vehicles passing on Sunset
smelled faintly of oleander, the
oleander was lightly perfumed with exhaust, and the sky overhead was as clear as a
hardshell Baptist's conscience.
Peoria Smith, the blind paperboy, was standing in his accustomed place on the corner
of Sunset and Laurel, and if that
didn't mean God was in His heaven and all was jake with the world, I didn't know what
did.
Yet since I'd swung my feet out of bed that morning at the unaccustomed hour of 7:30
a.m., things had felt a little
off-kilter, somehow; a tad woozy around the edges. It was only as I was shaving --or
at least showing those pesky
bristles the razor in an effort to scare them into submission--that I realized part of
the reason why. Although I'd been
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
up reading until at least two, I hadn't heard the Demmicks roll in, squiffed to the
earlobes and trading those snappy
one-liners that apparently form the basis of their marriage.
Nor had I heard Buster, and that was maybe even odder. Buster, the Demmicks' Welsh
Corgi, has a high-pitched bark
that goes through your head like slivers of glass, and he uses it as much as he can.
Also, he's the jealous type. He lets
loose with one of his shrill barking squalls every time George and Gloria clinch, and
when they aren't zinging each
other like a couple of vaudeville comedians, George and Gloria usually are clinching.
I've gone to sleep on more than
one occasion listening to them giggle while that mutt prances around their feet going
yarkyarkyark and wondering how
difficult it would be to strangle a muscular, medium-sized dog with a length of pianowire.
Last night, however, the
Demmicks' apartment had been as quiet as the grave. It was passing strange, but a long
way from earth-shattering; the
Demmicks weren't exactly your perfect life-on-a-timetable couple at the best of times.
Peoria Smith was all right, though--chipper as a chipmunk, just as always, and he'd
recognized me by my walk even
though it was at least an hour before my usual time. He was wearing a baggy CalTech
sweatshirt that came down to his
thighs and a pair of corduroy knickers that showed off his scabby knees. His hated
white cane leaned casually against
the side of the card-table he did business on.
``Say, Mr. Umney! Howza kid?''
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
Peoria's dark glasses glinted in the morning sunlight, and as he turned toward the
sound of my step with my copy of the
L.A. Times held up in front of him, I had a momentary unsettling thought: it was as if
someone had drilled two big
black holes into his face. I shivered the thought off my back, thinking that maybe the
time had come to cut out the
before-bedtime shot of rye. Either that or double the dose.
Hitler was on the front of the Times, as he so often was these days. This time it was
something about Austria. I thought,
and not for the first time, how at home that pale face and limp forelock would have
looked on a post-office bulletin
board.
``The kid is just about okay, Peoria,'' I said. `Ìn fact, the kid is as fine as fresh
paint on an outhouse wall.''
I dropped a dime into the Corona box resting atop Peoria's stack of newspapers.
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