Дональд Уэстлейк - Forever and a Death

“Take your time.”

“Oh, no,” she said, but not to him, to her reflection in the mirror. “I’m too hungry to take my time.”

She finished with her hair — not much she could do about it, really — then washed the underwear she’d had on for the drive and hung it on the towel rack, and went out to find him seated cross-legged on his bed, reading his paperback novel again. He put it aside, stood, looked her over, smiled tentatively, and said, “Not so bad, I guess.”

“I’ve had better compliments,” she said.

He looked flustered: “No, I meant my part. The clothes.”

“They’re great,” she assured him, and turned in a circle, arms out. “But now,” she said, “I really have to put some food in here, before there’s nothing under these clothes but skin and bone.”

“There’s some kind of diner or cafe just down the street, doesn’t look too bad. We just have to be back here in two hours, so I can make another phone call.”

“You talked to your friend?”

“I’ll tell you all about it,” he promised, “while we eat.”

The best thing you could say for the place where they had their late dinner was that it wasn’t as garishly overlit as the similar place across the street. The food was acceptable, and there was beer; Fosters, in cans. Ladies could have a styrofoam cup with their beer, on request. Kim decided not to request.

Over the various fried foods, George told her about his phone call and what Richard Curtis had done. She stared at him, appalled: “But why?”

“Destroy my credibility,” he said. “No matter what I do now, it isn’t a case of me charging Richard Curtis with something, it’s just me reacting to the charge he’s made against me.”

“What an awful man he is,” Kim said, “Jerry Diedrich was absolutely right.”

George shook his head at her. “Not absolutely right,” he said. “He was sure I was going to destroy the reef.”

That made her stop eating to consider him thoughtfully and then say, “Two days ago, you were my enemy.”

“And now?”

Suddenly, she felt awkward. “Well, you’re not my enemy,” she said. “We know that much.”

When he came back to the room from his second phone call, she was feeling very sleepy again, probably because of all the food and the two beers, but she needed to stay awake to know what was going on. And also, her ribs were hurting again.

He came in and looked a little less grim than when he’d told her about Curtis’s mad accusations back at the cafe. “There’s somebody for me to call in the morning,” he said. “A business friend of my friend’s, here in Australia.”

“What can he do?”

“No idea. Maybe nothing. I’ll find out tomorrow morning.” He stretched, like a man who’s been too stiff and cramped in a too-confined space for far too long. “Right now,” he said, “I think we both need sleep.”

She said, “I shouldn’t have left that bandage off, I’m getting very sore again. Could you help me put it on?”

She picked the soft roll of it up from her bed, and handed it to him.

“Sure.”

As he took the two snaps off the bandage, she said, “Wait, I have to—” and pulled the blouse off over her head. “Okay.”

He looked at her, and became awkward again. “I didn’t know how to buy a, I don’t know how the—”

“That’s all right.” She held her arms out from her sides, so he could wrap the bandage around her torso. When he stepped close, it was only natural to rest her hands on his shoulders. He put his arms around her to start the bandage and she lifted her face up to him, and they kissed, and that was natural, too.

When they kissed again, he’d dropped the bandage onto the floor, so he could stroke the skin of her back with both palms. She murmured, and their teeth bumped, and she held him tighter, but then he pressed her close and the sudden pain in her ribs made her gasp and pull away.

“I’m sorry,” he said, “I forgot.”

“No. I’m sorry,” she told him, still holding to him, not wanting to let go. “Damn these ribs! George, what can we do?”

Slowly he smiled. “Well, it’s an engineering problem, isn’t it?” he said. “And I’m an engineer.”

Andre Brevizin entered the offices of Coolis, Maguire, Brevizin & Chin at exactly ten-thirty Friday morning, as was his wont. He exchanged the usual greetings with Angela Brother, the firm’s excellent receptionist, strolled down the hall to his own office, paused to look out at the usual morning bustle at the corners of George and Margaret Streets one flight below, sat at his vast desk, reached for the stack of newspapers placed there as usual by Angela, and the phone rang.

He blinked. He didn’t much like such suddenness. A lawyer in a highly respectable corporate firm with offices in one of the most prestigious and attractive locations in Brisbane, Andre Brevizin preferred a certain stateliness in his life, a certain moderation and order.

He lowered a severe brow at the telephone — an internal call it was, not external — permitted it to ring a second time, and only then did he pick it up: “Angela?”

“Jimmy Coggins on the line for you.”

Ah. Jimmy Coggins was an important corporate client, a construction company man and developer partly responsible for the ever-widening suburban sprawl around the center of the city. As such, he was both to be deplored and catered to. And of course, he was calling at this exact moment because he was well aware of the comfortably precise routines of Brevizin’s days.

“I’ll take it,” he decided, and pressed the button on the phone, and said, “Well, Jimmy, you know all my habits.”

“Only the least disgusting ones,” Jimmy assured him. “I take it you haven’t read the papers yet.”

“I was just reaching for them.”

“Take a look at the business section of the Herald ,” Jimmy suggested. “Page forty-two.”

The Sydney Morning Herald lay beneath the Brisbane paper on Brevizin’s desk; the usual order. He brought it out, opened it flat on his desk to the appropriate page, and said, “What am I looking for? I don’t see your name here.”

“No, thank God. We’ll save those revelations for another day. The Richard Curtis piece.”

“Where— Oh, down here.”

It was a brief piece, tawdry, under the slightly misleading headline AMERICAN SOUGHT IN BRISBANE IN SPY CHARGE. Industrial spying, it was, the usual disgruntled ex-employee. All of them Americans, though it had happened right here in town. Or been reported here. “And?”

“Manville says he didn’t do it.”

“Jimmy, they all say they didn’t do it. When your turn comes, you’ll say you didn’t do it.”

“Somebody has to be innocent, Andre.”

“You think so?”

“Manville’s a friend of a very good friend of mine,” Jimmy said. “Also an American. My friend vouches for Manville, and that’s good enough for me.”

“But not good enough for a judge, I shouldn’t think. Jimmy, are you sending me this fellow?”

“I’d like to. On the QT.”

“On the dole, as well?”

“Oh, I think he could probably pay a modest fee. He doesn’t have Richard Curtis’s money, however.”

Brevizin had heard of Richard Curtis, here and there, but had never had direct dealings with the man. He had a vague impression of ruthlessness. He said, “Jimmy, I’m not a criminal lawyer, I couldn’t very well go to court with this fellow.”

“He needs advice, Andre, he needs to know what his options are. Apparently, there’s quite a bit more to the story.”

“There always is.” Brevizin sighed. “All right, have him give me a call.”