"Destroyer - 022 - Brain Drain" - читать интересную книгу автора (Murphy Warren)

"You don't like my eggs."

"No. I like your eggs."

"You like my eggs so much you're letting them turn to stone."

"It's not your eggs. I'm thinking."

"There's another woman," said Ethel Waldman.

"Woman, shwoman, what other woman?" asked Waldman.

"I knew it. There's someone else," said Ethel Waldman. "Someone who doesn't ruin her nails cooking for you or get wrinkles worrying about how to make you happy. Some little street chippie with cheap perfume and a young set of boobs who doesn't care beans about you like I care. I know."

"What are you talking about?"

"I hope you and that cheap tart you're running around with are very happy. Get out of here. Get out of here."

"C'mon, Ethel, I got problems."

"Get out of here, animal. Go to your whore. Go to your whore."

"I've got work. I'll see you tonight, Ethel."

"Get out. Out, animal."

And in the hallway of the fifth floor of their apartment building, Jake Waldman heard his wife yell out to the world:

"Lock up your daughters, everyone. The whore-master's on the loose."

At the division headquarters, there was a phone call waiting for Inspector Waldman. It was Ethel. She would do anything to patch up their marriage.

They should try again. Like adults. She would forget the incident with the actress.

"What actress? What incident?"

"Jake. If we're trying again, let's at least be honest."

"All right, all right," said Waldman, who had been through this before.

"Was she a famous actress?"

"Ethel!"

And that held the family problems for the day. The mayor's office wanted a special report and the commissioner's office wanted a special report and some agency in Washington wanted some kind of report for a special study and a psychologist from Wayne State University wanted to talk to Waldman, so Inspector Waldman hauled the lowest grade detective he saw first and gave him an assignment.

"Keep those dingbats off my back," he said.

The police photographers had come up with something interesting. Perhaps Waldman had missed it during the rush to finish up the on-the-scene work. But could he make out a certain poster on the wall through the lines of blood? Right under that arm there?