Bill Pronzini: Hoodwink

“I’m interested, all right,” I said, and meant it. “And I have read some of your work.”

“Oh?”

“Sure. The series you used to do for Adventure, about the Alaskan peace officer in the twenties. And the series about the railroad detectives, Kincaid and Buckmaster, in Short Stories. Pure detective fiction, and some terrific writing.”

Bohannon’s grin widened. “I don’t know if that’s grease or not,” he said, “but I like it anyhow.”

“It’s not grease.”

“Well, thanks. It’s nice to have your work remembered.”

“Maybe you think so, Jimbo,” Dancer said, “but not me. Who the hell really cares if you’ve published twenty million words and I’ve published maybe ten? Who cares about all the lousy stories and books we’ve written? They’re all just so much garbage rotting away in basements and secondhand stores.”

Bohannon sighed. It was obvious he’d heard that particular line, or a variation of it, before and that he’d learned the only way to deal with it was to ignore it. So it seemed like a good idea for me to help him out by changing the subject.

“About the manuscript and letter you and the others received, Mr. Bohannon,” I said. “Do you think it’s a serious extortion plot of some kind?”

“Oh, I doubt it. Somebody’s idea of a joke, probably.”

“Did the novelette ring any bells?”

“None, I’m afraid.”

“Was the style at all familiar?”

“Nope,” Bohannon said. He grinned. “I don’t know much about Victorian melodramas, — horse operas are what I like.”

“Another twenty years,” Dancer said, “there won’t be any more horse operas for anybody to like. Not even any of the adult porno crap that’s all over the place right now. Nothing. Nada.” “Maybe not, Russ. But I’ll tell you one thing there’ll still be plenty of twenty years from now.”

“What’s that?”

“Horses’ asses,“Bohannon said.

It was a pretty good exit line, and Bohannon knew it; he nodded to me, showed me his grin one more time, and moved off. Dancer stared after him, but there was no anger in his expression; maybe it was only Frank Colodny who made him feel belligerent when he was tight. Then he shrugged, lifted his glass, saw it was empty, and scowled at it.

“I need another drink,” he said, as if he were surprised at himself for overlooking the fact until just now.

“It’s early yet, Russ.”

“Damn right it is,” he said, misinterpreting my meaning. “Come on, we’ll get a couple of belts, and I’ll introduce you to the rest of the Pulpeteers.”

He turned toward the bar, walking steadily enough, and I followed and watched him tell the young guy who was tending it to pour a double Wild Turkey on the rocks. There was still no beer, it turned out. Dancer started to make a fuss about that, but I told him it didn’t matter. I wasn’t thirsty anyway. And prodded him aside.

But I did the prodding a little too forcefully, because he turned straight into a heavy mahogany coffee table and stumbled against its leg. Some of the liquor spilled out of his glass onto the table. The two women sitting behind it on the plush Victorian settee hopped up to keep from getting splashed; then the older of the two reached down just in time to prevent her purse, which was perched on one corner of the table, from toppling off.

Dancer recovered his balance, smiled in a wolfish way, and said, “Sorry, ladies. A slight accident.”

“There’s always a slight accident when you’re around, Russ,” the older woman said.

“Now, Sweeteyes, don’t be nasty.”

The woman said something to that in an undertone, but I was looking at the younger one and I didn’t hear it. She was the tall, good-looking redhead I had almost run down earlier, and she was even nicer to look at up close. Not pretty in any classic sense, but still striking: animated face etched with humor lines; generous mouth, sleek jawline, dark eyes that had no makeup to accentuate them and didn’t need any; slim long-fingered hands; stylish shoulder-length hairdo; willowy figure in a dark green suit. She might have been thirty-five or forty, not that it mattered.

She gazed back at me without conceit, offense, or false modesty-just a frank steady look that said she liked to be appreciated. Not eye-raped, but appreciated. “Let me guess,” she said. Sexy voice too, like Lauren Bacall. “You’re the private eye.”

“That’s me. And you’re-?”

“Kerry Wade,” Dancer said. “And this is Cybil Wade. Two-thirds of the Wade family. Old Ivan’s around somewhere.” He leered at the older woman. “Old Ivan’s always been around somewhere, hasn’t he, Sweeteyes?”

“Don’t call me that, Russ,” Cybil Wade said.

“Why not? Fits you.”

He was right about that. Her eyes were huge, tawny-colored, guileless-sweet. Combined with dimples, the same coppery hair and willowy figure as her daughter, and a radiant smile, they gave her a kind of ingenuousness that even six decades or so of living had failed to erase. Kerry Wade was attractive, yes, but Cybil Wade was beautiful. Had been beautiful when she was young and was still beautiful right now-a sixty-year-old knockout in a white satin dress.

I touched hands with her and with her daughter, and we all said how pleased we were to meet each other. It seemed to me that Kerry’s hand lingered in mine, but maybe that was just wishful thinking. And the one thing about Cybil that did not fit the sweet, wholesome image she presented was her voice: it was even sexier than Kerry’s.

“Hard to believe this little doll wrote the Max Ruffe private eye stuff, isn’t it?” Dancer said. “Never could get over it. Wrote just like a man- all hard-edged blood, guts, and sex.”

“Not only like a man,” I said. “Better than just about all of them.”

Kerry’s gaze was still on me, and it seemed to have some speculative interest in it. “Have you read a lot of Cybil’s pulp stories?”

“Enough to put her in the same league with Chandler and Hammett. I can even quote a line from one.”

“Really?“ Cybil asked.

“Really. I read it five or six years ago and I’ve never forgotten it. ‘He had a face like a graveyard at night-cold, empty, a little frightening-and when he opened his mouth, you could see stumps of teeth sticking up here and there like headstones.’ “

She rolled her eyes. “My God,” she said, “are you sure I wrote that?” But she sounded pleased just the same.

“Positive. I forget the title of the story, but the author was Samuel Leatherman.”

Dancer said, “You always were good with the brooding metaphor, Sweeteyes. Wrote just like a man, all right. One thing, though, that you never wrote as well as a hack like me.”

“What would that be, Russ?”

“A kick in the balls,” Dancer said. “Only a man can do justice to a kick in the balls.”

He seemed to expect some kind of reaction to that but not the one he got. Kerry and I just looked at him the way you do at somebody who makes a boorish remark at a party; but an expression of ironic amusement crossed Cybil’s face, and she reached out and patted Dancer’s arm like somebody patting a dog on the head.

“I’m not so sure about that, Russ,” she said. “Would you like me to kick you in the balls so we can find out?”

Dancer didn’t much like that; he glared at her for a long moment. I took a step toward him in case he got nasty. But then his facial muscles relaxed, and he shook his head and began to laugh.

“Any time, Sweeteyes,” he said. “It might even be fun.” And he laughed so hard that he banged into the coffee table again and spilled a little more of his drink. He also dislodged Cybil’s purse this time, sent it off onto the floor before she could grab it. It popped open when it hit, and some things spilled out.