Макс Коллинз - A Shroud for Aquarius

“Five years ago the local law told Ginnie to quit dealing. Told her it wasn’t respectable for somebody running a place like ETC.’s.”

He nodded. “And she did what they told her.”

“Are you sure of that?”

“Sure I’m sure. She quit dealing. She was doing fine with her shop; who needed it?”

“She had a gambling habit, you know.”

He laughed, a scoffing sort of laugh. “So she went to Vegas and Tahoe when she needed to cut loose. So what? Gambling habit, ha.”

The bartender came around and picked up Sturms’s empty glass; he didn’t order another.

“Now,” he said, “I’ve done you the courtesy of meeting with you. Now why don’t you do me the courtesy of leaving? Members and their guests only here — I’m about to go down and take a shower before I go home. And you’re about to be nobody’s guest.”

We sat amidst plants of all persuasions in a little bar/deli named after Amelia Earhart. I was having another Pabst, and she was having a Coors Light. Her eyes were greener than the plants.

“So you’re a writer?” she said, smiling nervously, her free hand tugging at the June Cleaver pearls.

“That’s right, Shirl.”

We had already decided that she would be Shirl, and I would be Mal.

“Not a copywriter, though,” she said.

“No — I wasn’t up to see your boss about an ad-writing job. Like I told you, we were both friends of Ginnie Mullens and I wanted to do some mutual commiserating.”

She shrugged with her eyes. “Dave was pretty miserable about it. They broke up, but he’s still carrying the torch.”

“I notice you refer to him as Dave, not Mr. Flater.”

She shrugged with her shoulders. “Don’t read anything into that. Dave just runs a casual shop. He likes his clients to feel among friends, and he makes his employees feel the same way.”

“You aren’t dating him or anything.”

“I’ve seen him socially a few times. What kind of writer are you, if you aren’t a copywriter?”

“Novelist.”

She brightened. “Really? What have you written?”

“I write mysteries.” I mentioned the name of the latest one.

She dimmed. “I don’t read mysteries, sorry. I’m afraid I’m one of those women into historical romances.”

“They make terrific escape, and some of ’em are very nicely written. When was the last time Dave saw Ginnie?”

“As far as I know, it was almost a month ago. It really broke off sudden.”

“Is that something you just gathered, or...?”

“I heard it. The tail end of it, anyway. She came up to Multi-Media and they went in his office and you could hear them arguing clear out at my reception desk. I never heard them argue like that before. They used to kid on the square sometimes, your normal good-natured sniping. Only this time they really blew, and she came storming out.”

“Did you hear her say anything to him?”

She made an embarrassed face. “Yeah.”

“What?”

She leaned forward and whispered: “She said, ‘You’ll get your goddamn money, asshole,’ and, boom, went out the door.”

“Did Flater follow her?”

“No. He just stood there with a real red face.”

“Then what?”

A different sort of embarrassment. “Then he asked me out to dinner.”

“I see.”

“No, you don’t. We’d seen each other a few times, while he and Ginnie were thick. They had your basic open relationship... and, well, hey — I found Dave attractive, and he’s my boss, and I liked Ginnie okay, but I went out with him a few times, anyway, ’cause he asked. And I admit it made me uncomfortable, after, and I asked him to cool it, at least as long as he and Ginnie were an item.”

“So when Ginnie stormed out, and he asked you to dinner, it was...”

“It was punctuation at the end of a sentence, if you know what I mean. It was like he was saying it for her benefit, even though she wasn’t around. Weird, but true.”

“But you haven’t dated him much since.”

“That was the last time. We didn’t have much fun. He was very blue about breaking up with Ginnie, blue and... angry, I guess. I’ve had that kind of relationship, haven’t you?”

“What kind?”

She sighed. “Where you bust up with somebody over something they said or did, and then you get to feeling blue, thinking about how much you miss them and how you wish you could patch things up with them, but when you start thinking about why you busted up exactly, you get mad all over again.”

“Yeah. I’ve had that kind of relationship.”

She grinned. “Who hasn’t? Say, why are you asking all these questions about Ginnie, and Dave?”

I poured the last of my Pabst bottle into my glass. “It’s not Dave, really. It’s Ginnie I’m interested in. I went to high school with her, and we were close. Drifted apart. Now she’s dead, and I’m trying to make some sense of it.”

She gave me a puzzled look; boy, her eyes were green. “That’s a funny sort of thing to do.”

“Is it?”

“It’s not unusual to mope around thinking about somebody after they die, and try and make sense out of it. But to go around asking people questions, like in Citizen Kane or something, that’s odd.”

I smiled a little. “You like old movies?”

She smiled a little back at me. “Sure.”

“Want to take one in some time, at the Bijou?”

“I go there all the time. Sometimes I take my daughter.”

“Oh, so you have a little girl.”

“Yeah. Seven years. I’m divorced.”

“Most single people our age are.”

“Are you?”

“I’m the exception that proves the rule.”

“I’ve never understood that expression. You’re a writer — why don’t you explain it to me?”

“I’ve never understood it either. That doesn’t stop me from using it, though.”

She sipped her glass of Coors. “You’re an odd duck. Maybe it’s because you’re a writer.”

“It’s because I’m a mystery writer, probably.”

“Trying to put puzzles together.”

“Yeah. Trying to make things make sense. Trying to make life tidy and neat.”

“Which it isn’t.”

“Which it isn’t. But trying, anyway. Do you know a guy named Sturms?”

“Sure,” she said, not looking at me. “He’s an insurance man.”

“Ever hear anything else about him?”

“Such as?”

“Such as, I don’t know. Just wondering.”

“No. He’s Dave’s insurance man, that’s all I know.”

“Really. Does he ever come to see Dave, at the office?”

“Sure. He was in this morning.”

Interesting.

“Like another beer, Shirl?”

“No. Thank you. This’ll do me.” She glanced at a round clock on the pine wall, surrounded by shrubbery. “It’s almost five. I have to pick my little girl up at the sitter’s in fifteen minutes.”

“Thanks for taking off early, so we could have this little chat.”

“It’s okay. Dave’s loose. Anytime after four, I can go if I need to, or just feel like it.”

“He sounds like a good boss.”

“He really is.”

I walked her from Amelia Earhart’s around the corner and a couple blocks down, to a parking ramp where her car was. Mine, too, actually.

On the way, I said, “You must be about my age — probably a little younger, though.”

“I’m thirty-three.”

“You’re a year younger than me. Can I ask you a question?”

With nice dry humor, she said, “It’s a little bit late to start asking me if you can ask questions, Mal, isn’t it?”

I put my arm in hers; she seemed to like it.

“You’re right,” I said. “But I wanted to get a little personal.”