to settle for HOMEY , but . . .”
“What?”
“Well, it’s sometimes misunderstood.”
Danny chuckled.
The real-estate agent kept up a steady patter about mortgage rates and lenders, new homes versus older ones, as the Mercedes forged westward, passing huge tracts of expensive town houses, until, quite suddenly, they were in the country.
“Isn’t it fab?” she asked as they turned onto a washboarded road. “It’s one of the last corners of Fairfax that isn’t developed to within an inch of its life.”
From the outside, the house had a slightly down-at-the-heels look, but from a buyer’s point of view there was nothing obviously wrong with it. On the contrary, it was a comfortable-looking house in good repair, with copper gutters and a towering oak that shaded its roof from the afternoon sun. The inside was neat asa pin, with bloodred Oriental carpets sprawling across the living-room floor. Hand-colored nineteenth-century engravings hung from the walls in simple wooden frames: desert landscapes, crowded caravansaries, and scenes from the souks.
Nice stuff,
Danny thought,
and the real thing, too—not something you’d pick up at K-Mart.
The furniture was worn but comfortable, with simple wooden pieces and overstuffed couches and chairs. Following Adele as she opened and closed doors to empty closets and a tired-looking bathroom, they came into the kitchen—which Adele declared “serviceable. But if it were me,” she said, “I’d retire these harvest-gold appliances. I mean, really!” Then she led him past “the laundry room” and “a nice big pantry—that’s a good feature,” hesitating, finally, before a scuffed white door. “And this is the study,” she sighed. “I really do apologize for the state it’s in—you’re getting a preview here, so I hope you’ll understand: I haven’t had a chance to tidy it up yet.” Opening the door, she stepped aside and let Danny enter ahead of her.
He expected to find a mess, but it was actually quite tidy—just a little small and full of stuff. Some black filing cabinets and crowded bookshelves. A wooden desk with a flat-screen monitor amid piles of paper and stacks of books, some quite old—and everything covered with dust. Beneath the desk: a Dell Dimension computer. A map of eastern Turkey on one wall, a map of the Vatican on another.
For the first time, Danny felt that he was getting somewhere.
“It’s a little musty,” Adele said.
“No, it’s a nice room,” Danny assured her, pausing to study the contents of one of the bookshelves.
Not unexpectedly, most of the books were academic titles that concerned various aspects of religion. Slim volumes described the lives and works of medieval saints and mystics, while other and thicker tomes cogitated on an array of esoteric subjects, with works ranging from
Elizabethan Jews
to books in Arabic and Italian whose subject matter Danny was unable to fathom from the titles.
Adele wrinkled her nose. “Of course it’s a lot more spacious than it
looks
because of the clutter,” she said. “And the built-in shelves are a nice feature.”
Danny nodded. “Yeah,” he said, “they’re good to have.”
“One of the things I love about this place is the traffic flow, the way everything sort of
swooshes
from one room to another. That’s because of the floor plan—it’s so open!”
Danny was nodding, but he wasn’t listening. His attention had strayed to a single shelf, directly behind the professor’s desk. What struck him about it was the look of the books that it held—for the most part, they were bright and new, unlike those on the other shelves. His eyes flickered over the titles:
Lipid Tubules and the Paradigm of Molecular Engineering
The Hermetic Apocalypse
Protein-Based Computers
The Magical Writings of Thomas Vaughn
Nanotechnology and the Quantum Corral
“It’s a terrific room if you have a book collection,” Adele confided. “All that
shelf space
.”
Danny continued to
“What?”
“Well, it’s sometimes misunderstood.”
Danny chuckled.
The real-estate agent kept up a steady patter about mortgage rates and lenders, new homes versus older ones, as the Mercedes forged westward, passing huge tracts of expensive town houses, until, quite suddenly, they were in the country.
“Isn’t it fab?” she asked as they turned onto a washboarded road. “It’s one of the last corners of Fairfax that isn’t developed to within an inch of its life.”
From the outside, the house had a slightly down-at-the-heels look, but from a buyer’s point of view there was nothing obviously wrong with it. On the contrary, it was a comfortable-looking house in good repair, with copper gutters and a towering oak that shaded its roof from the afternoon sun. The inside was neat asa pin, with bloodred Oriental carpets sprawling across the living-room floor. Hand-colored nineteenth-century engravings hung from the walls in simple wooden frames: desert landscapes, crowded caravansaries, and scenes from the souks.
Nice stuff,
Danny thought,
and the real thing, too—not something you’d pick up at K-Mart.
The furniture was worn but comfortable, with simple wooden pieces and overstuffed couches and chairs. Following Adele as she opened and closed doors to empty closets and a tired-looking bathroom, they came into the kitchen—which Adele declared “serviceable. But if it were me,” she said, “I’d retire these harvest-gold appliances. I mean, really!” Then she led him past “the laundry room” and “a nice big pantry—that’s a good feature,” hesitating, finally, before a scuffed white door. “And this is the study,” she sighed. “I really do apologize for the state it’s in—you’re getting a preview here, so I hope you’ll understand: I haven’t had a chance to tidy it up yet.” Opening the door, she stepped aside and let Danny enter ahead of her.
He expected to find a mess, but it was actually quite tidy—just a little small and full of stuff. Some black filing cabinets and crowded bookshelves. A wooden desk with a flat-screen monitor amid piles of paper and stacks of books, some quite old—and everything covered with dust. Beneath the desk: a Dell Dimension computer. A map of eastern Turkey on one wall, a map of the Vatican on another.
For the first time, Danny felt that he was getting somewhere.
“It’s a little musty,” Adele said.
“No, it’s a nice room,” Danny assured her, pausing to study the contents of one of the bookshelves.
Not unexpectedly, most of the books were academic titles that concerned various aspects of religion. Slim volumes described the lives and works of medieval saints and mystics, while other and thicker tomes cogitated on an array of esoteric subjects, with works ranging from
Elizabethan Jews
to books in Arabic and Italian whose subject matter Danny was unable to fathom from the titles.
Adele wrinkled her nose. “Of course it’s a lot more spacious than it
looks
because of the clutter,” she said. “And the built-in shelves are a nice feature.”
Danny nodded. “Yeah,” he said, “they’re good to have.”
“One of the things I love about this place is the traffic flow, the way everything sort of
swooshes
from one room to another. That’s because of the floor plan—it’s so open!”
Danny was nodding, but he wasn’t listening. His attention had strayed to a single shelf, directly behind the professor’s desk. What struck him about it was the look of the books that it held—for the most part, they were bright and new, unlike those on the other shelves. His eyes flickered over the titles:
Lipid Tubules and the Paradigm of Molecular Engineering
The Hermetic Apocalypse
Protein-Based Computers
The Magical Writings of Thomas Vaughn
Nanotechnology and the Quantum Corral
“It’s a terrific room if you have a book collection,” Adele confided. “All that
shelf space
.”
Danny continued to
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