（外文电子版资料）Sttephen King - Umneys Last Case.doc

Stephen King Umneys 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 Baptists conscience. Peoria Smith, the blind paperboy, was standing in his accustomed place on the corner of Sunset and Laurel, and if that didnt mean God was in His heaven and all was jake with the world, I didnt know what did. Yet since Id 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 Id been up reading until at least two, I hadnt 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, hes the jealous type. He lets loose with one of his shrill barking squalls every time George and Gloria clinch, and when they arent zinging each other like a couple of vaudeville comedians, George and Gloria usually are clinching. Ive gone