Chapter 5
Wayne had never thought of his apartment as any kind of showplace, but it was straight from the pages of House Beautiful after a visit to Rondel’s home. Wayne’s was a furnished one-bedroom flat decorated in California stark, and its prime recommendation was a bleak and cheerless efficiency. The walls were all clean and white, the furniture cheap but serviceable. The thing that struck him the most about it, though, as he entered and switched on the light was that it was neat and odor-free. Wayne was not a conscientious housekeeper, and there was dust on the shelves, but at least everything was in its proper place and the gold shag carpeting was not littered with refuse.
Sometimes it takes a really bad experience to make you appreciate what you’ve got, Wayne thought as he looked
