Маргарет Миллар - The Murder of Miranda

“Who was Grady practicing his macho on?”

“That’s the favor I’m doing you, man. Her, Mrs. Shaw. She was his new chick.”

Aragon watched in silence as a fat brown bird landed on the hood of his car, hopped over to the windshield and picked a bug off one of the wipers. “You wouldn’t make up a story like that, would you?”

“Sure I would, but I didn’t. It was right here in the parking lot that I first saw them together. Grady was using a different technique, high class, no hands, lots of talk and eye contact. Then they drove off in her car, a custom-job black Lincoln Continental. What about our deal?”

“It’s on. I owe you one. When you need my services, give me a call. Here’s my card.”

Frederic shook his head. “I already got your card. I picked it out of the wastebasket where Ellen threw it.”

“All right, Frederic, now I owe you two.”

“Two? How come?”

“It’s a personal thing.”

“I like personal things.”

“So do I,” Aragon said. But not this one. She threw it in the wastebasket because she had no intention of telling me anything. The conversation was a cover-up, hocus pocus. “The girl in the front office, Ellen you called her, what’s she like?”

“She loses her cool and chews me out about once a day, but she’s not on my H list.”

“What’s your H list, Frederic?”

“H for hate.”

“Is this a real list or do you merely keep it in your head?”

“Real, man. Lots of people on it, too. I added one today, that old creep Van Eyck. He told me he was going to string me up by my thumbs in the boiler room. Imagine saying that to a kid.”

“I’m trying to imagine what the kid said first.”

“I only asked him if he was queen of the fairies.”

“That’s not an endearing question, Frederic.”

Frederic looked up into the sun, squinting. “How am I going to learn things without asking? If he isn’t queen of the fairies, he could have answered no. And if he is, well, we live in an enlightened society.”

“Don’t bet your thumbs on it, kid.”

“It wasn’t even my idea in the first place. The two flakies, those sisters that are always hanging around, they were talking about it. You know, hormones. They decided if the old man’s trouble was hormones it could be corrected, but if it was genes it couldn’t and they were stuck with it. Would you care to know what I think?”

“I don’t believe I would, no.”

“Van Eyck has blue genes.” The boy doubled up with laughter and his tomato-red face looked ready to burst its skin. “That’s a joke I heard at school. Blue genes, see? Hey, man, don’t you have a sense of humor?”

“It’s been temporarily deactivated,” Aragon said. “Now let’s leave it at that and you go back to school and I’ll go back to the office.”

“No. No, you can’t. You have to look for Grady. I got everything figured out for you — find Mrs. Shaw and Grady will be with her. They’re probably just shacked up in her house making macho and not answering the phone.”

“How many times have you called there, Frederic?”

“Six, seven. Why shouldn’t I? I mean, Grady and me, we’re like friends almost. When he’s not around I don’t have anyone to talk to.”

“You could attend classes once in a while. They have people there you can talk to called teachers.”

“Don’t lecture me, man. Every time I go near a grownup I get a lecture. Except Grady.”

“And what do you get from Grady?”

“Action. Anyway, he can’t afford to give me a lecture. He dropped out of the tenth grade and has been maxing it ever since.”

“Maxing?”

“Living up to his maximum potential, like doing what he wants to without being caught.”

Aragon watched the brown bird hop across the hood and down to the ground, thinking that Mrs. Shaw was an unlikely choice for Grady’s maxing. “Listen, Frederic, are you sure Mrs. Shaw is Grady’s new chick? She’s an older woman, a widow with a refined background—”

“Where have you been all these years? Backgrounds don’t matter anymore unless they’re real special like Bingo Firenze’s. His uncle is a hit man for the Mafia. Now that matters... Are you going to find Grady for me?”

“I’m going to keep looking for Mrs. Shaw. If Grady’s with her, fine. I can’t guarantee anything beyond that.”

“Why are you after Mrs. Shaw, anyway?”

“There are some probate papers for her to sign. Know what probate means?”

“Sure,” Frederic said. “It’s when a person dies and everybody’s fighting for the money that’s left and a judge decides who gets it.”

“Close enough.”

“I hope Mrs. Shaw gets the money. Grady needs it. He’s always scrounging. Last month he borrowed twenty dollars from my sister, April, just before they sent her away to riding school in Arizona. Grady doesn’t know it yet but April gave me the IOU so I could collect. I’m saving it to use sort of like blackmail when I need a very important favor.”

“Bingo Firenze’s uncle would be proud of you, kid.”

“Sure.” Frederic opened the car door. “Listen, when you see Grady don’t tell him it was me who sent you. I wouldn’t want him to think I care what he does or anything like that. Deal?”

“Deal.”

They shook hands. It was a solemn occasion: Aragon had acquired his first private client.

Leaving the parking lot, he drove past the front entrance of the club. The two sisters were standing outside the door looking as though they were expecting something or someone. He hoped he wasn’t it.

“That’s him, all right,” Cordelia said. “Did you notice how he stepped on the accelerator the instant he spotted us? Very odd, don’t you think?”

“Well, a lot of people do it,” Juliet said wistfully.

“A lot of people have reason to because they know us. But this young man doesn’t know us, so that can’t be the reason.”

“He has rather a pleasant face.”

“You gullible idiot, they’re the worst kind. Believe me, he’s up to no good. You mustn’t be taken in by appearances, Juliet.”

“I’ll try not.”

“They mean nothing.”

“I know. But wouldn’t it be nice to be pretty, Cordelia? Just for a little while, even a few days?”

“Oh, shut up.” Cordelia gave her sister a warning pinch on the arm. “We are us and that’s that. Don’t go dreaming.”

“I won’t. Still, it would be nice, just for a few—”

“All right, it would be nice. But it’s not going to happen, never ever, so forget it.”

Juliet’s eyes were moist, partly from the pinch, partly from the never ever, which was even more final than plain never. Through the moisture, however, she could see the Admiral’s Rolls-Royce approaching, as slow and steady as a ship nearing port. “Here comes Pops.”

“Maybe we should tell him.”

“What about?”

“The disaster,” Cordelia said, frowning. “You told Ellen you distinctly smelled disaster the instant you heard Miranda Shaw’s name.”

“I did smell it, I really did. Unless it was my depilatory.”

“Oh, for God’s sakes, there you go ruining things again.”

“I can’t help it. I only this minute remembered using the depilatory, which has a peculiar odor, kind of sulphurous, like hellfire. I’m sorry, Cordelia.”

“You damn well should be, blowing the whole bit like this.”

“It’s still very possible that something awful happened to her. We saw her and that lifeguard looking at each other and it was that kind of look, like in Singapore.”

The mention of Singapore inspired Cordelia to new heights. It was her opinion that Grady had lured Mrs. Shaw up into the mountains, stripped her of her clothes, virtue, cash and jewels, probably in that order, and left her there to perish.