Death Claims
“The drop off the curbs was twenty feet straight down to the red tile roofs of identical houses, another curved shelf of street, and more red roofs below that, among the sun-crested tops of reaching palms. Up here there wasn't bare earth enough to yield much greenery. Plantings ran to clumps of spiky Spanish bayonet and stunted banana trees in the jogs of long white stairways. Sam Wald's front door had sometime been enameled black, but the coating had seamed and scaled off in places. Dave tried a black bell push. It didn't seem to work. There was a stingy black iron knocker. He rapped that. At the end of the red tile landing a fat gray striped cat woke from sleep in a patch of sun, stretched, sat, began to wash. She reminded Dave of Tatiana, his and Rod's old cat. A little window back of iron grillwork in the door opened. A bloodshot eye looked out. "David Brandstetter," he told the eye. "Death-claims division, Medallion Life Insurance Company. It's about John Oats, the bookseller. H...e's dead." The voice that answered was raspy and defeated.MoreLess
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