Fletcher Flora - The Second Fletcher Flora Mystery MEGAPACK™ - 20 Classic Mystery & Crime Stories!

“Tennyson... and it’s a damned lie.”

“Isn’t it! You’re one who should know, sweetheart. That big hunk of male Latin. Ivan, yet. I wonder how the hell a Mexican ever came up with a name like that.”

“He’s only half Mexican. His mother was a White Russian. Once upon a time there were White Russians all over the place.”

“I had a feeling right along that the Commies were to blame.”

She emptied her glass and lifted one corner of her mouth in a sour grin. “Don’t work so hard at it, darling. Your heart’s showing.”

“The show goes on. Would you like to hear me sing something from Pagliacci ?”

“Stop it!”

It was about time, so I did.

A waiter brought us two more doubles. She drank some of hers, leaving her mouth wet. There was a candle burning in a little glass chimney on the table, and the light flickered on her face, making her lips shine. They were full and soft and darkly sullen, dropping at the corners.”

“He’s a louse,” she said. “He’s a beautiful, greedy louse, and he isn’t even worth killing, but I want him back. I want him on any terms.”

“Big love and little pride.”

“To hell with pride. I want Ivan.”

“It seems to be a phobia with women... you and Hannah among others. The names are legion, no doubt.”

“I’m just a girlfriend. Hannah’s a wife... yours, in case you’ve forgotten. If you have, you might start remembering.”

“I just got through explaining to myself that marriage is just a technicality in these matters. A body is not a wife. At the moment, it’s all quite clear, and I’ll thank you not to confuse me.”

“If you want to lie down, little man, it’s your business.” She finished her second double and stood up. Her eyes were smoky with contempt, and the contempt was for me, the little man lying down. She moved away through candlelight and shadow, the body that deserved better than a jilting in a white gown that hung on for dear life. I thought to myself that competition was hot as hell when something like that finished second.

After a while I moved in to the bar to get closer to the bottle. I had two more quick ones, and they helped a little, but not much, so I had a third one. Next to the dull pain, the feeling of degradation was worst. Losing a wife in public is worse than a public flogging. A guy who loses his wife is a comic sort of character.

Why had I hung on? Why had I stayed around after Hannah moved out of our rooms, and was obviously Ivan’s future and my past? To show my independence, I told myself. To make it plain that Carey MacCauley was not a guy to run from a nasty situation. I lied to myself fluently, but I was never a guy who could distort the truth with much success, and I didn’t even believe me when I was drunk. I stayed because there was always a chance that Hannah would come back. I stayed for salvage.

The third drink at the bar made progress. I began to feel a little numb, and my mind developed a warm and comfortable furriness. It was like having my thought processes bundled up in a raccoon coat. I ordered number four and began to nurse it. That’s the trick. You reach a certain point in solution, then you start nursing. You nurse the alcohol just right, it keeps you preserved without getting you pickled. You can go on and on for hours and hours in a delightful fog.

The minute hand went around the face of the clock behind the bar several times. Time passed... a lot of time. At some point between earlier and later, a brown and white blur appeared at my shoulder. I saw it in the glass. The brown was face and the white was mess jacket. There was a soft, semi-tropical voice.

“It is requested, señor, that you come at once to room six-sixteen.”

I asked, politely, why the hell I should come to room six-sixteen. The white blur shifted. The brown blur bent a little closer.

“It is urgent, señor . Most urgent.”

I replied that I could think of nothing more urgent than what I was doing, which was to stay drunk.

The soft voice purred, “It concerns, I believe, the beautiful Señora MacCauley.”

Hannah? Hannah in distress? I fell off my stool and mounted my white charger. The damned beast was obstreperous, refusing to gallop in a straight line, and the trail we left across the lobby looked something like a graphic representation of the spelling scores in third grade. We made the elevator bank, however, and a small brown monkey in a bright red uniform grinned evilly and took us up to six.

The hall up there was dimly lighted. For a guy in my condition, it should have been equipped with fog lights. The numbers on the doors retreated into shadows, refusing to be recognized. I used the Braille system, working along the hall, and finally I came to it. Sweeping curve down and sharp curve up and over... straight line... repeat the first movement... six-sixteen. I knocked, and a voice that was not Hannah’s told me to come in.

The room was small. The man sitting in a chair facing me was also small. Short, that is, but plump. He had straw colored hair that stood erect at the crown of his head. His face was round, and his cheeks jiggled when he talked. There was a brown Mexican cigarette in his mouth that leaked smoke. He squinted at me through the smoke, and his lips moved in something that might have been a smile. Add up the parts, and he sounds like nothing. But, even drunk, I was conscious of the parts. Some guys, for some reason, just register.

“Good evening, Mr. MacCauley. Or morning, I should say. My name’s Smith. Perhaps you’d better sit down before you fall down.”

His voice sounded as if he’d make a good first tenor in close harmony, and I’d have bet a bottle of tequila that his name wasn’t Smith. I spread my feet and kept standing.

“Where’s Hannah?” I said.

A fat little chuckle crawled up out of his fat little belly. “Mrs. MacCauley? Asleep, I presume. At least, our friend Ivan left her at the door of her room an hour or so ago.”

“Ivan is not our friend. Maybe yours, but not mine. He’s my arch foe whom I have treated, nevertheless, like a gentleman.”

. “So I’ve noticed. Well, he’s no friend of mine, either, when you come right down to it. And I doubt very much, if I were in your shoes, if I’d treat him like a gentleman. At any rate, if I were you, I’d see my wife and tell her earnestly that she had better, for the good of her soul as well as her pretty skin, rid herself of Señor Ivan in a hurry.”

“No good, Mr. Smith. My wife’s in love. Unfortunately, not with me. Have you ever tried to tell a woman that the man she loves is a louse?”

“I see your point. Women are headstrong in such matters. Nevertheless, the situation is desperate. I suggest you use the opposite approach. See Ivan, I mean. He might be more amenable to reason.”

“You think so? I doubt it. At any rate, why should I see him? Are you trying to imply that Ivan is a sort of Latin Bluebeard? As far as I can tell, he seems to be a healthy and handsome Mexican cad.”

“Ivan is deceptive that way.”

“What way?”

“I don’t propose to go into details. I have no interest in this business other than a natural desire to save a very lovely woman from making a grave mistake. I repeat my suggestion that you see Ivan.”

“For what purpose? To ask him if he will, pretty please, not swipe my wife? No, thanks?”

“There are other methods.”

“Beat him up? Knock his teeth out? Hannah would just gather up the scraps and tie a ribbon around them.”

“You are being facetious, Mr. MacCauley. I assure you it’s not a matter for levity.”

“You’re telling me? Who’s losing his wife around here, anyhow?”

“Quite so. My apologies, Mr. MacCauley. A threat, I think, is the proper method. Nothing crude, of course. A very gentle kind of threat. Are you in condition to remember simple instruction?”