Маргарет Миллар - The Murder of Miranda

“My opinion,” Aragon said, “is that you are a fund of information and I’d like to take you to lunch.”

Her eyebrows climbed up and hid briefly under her bangs. “Yeah? When?”

“Now.”

“Have you flipped? You can’t afford it on your salary.”

“We can go to some simple little place. Do you like chili burgers?”

“No.”

“Tacos? Burritos? Enchiladas?”

“No, no and no. I’m not a fun date at lunch anyway,” Charity added. “I have an ulcer.”

From his shoebox-sized office in the basement Aragon called the electric company and arranged to have Hippollomia’s truck released. Then he phoned the Penguin Club and was told Ellen Brewster had gone into town on an errand and was expected back about two o’clock. He didn’t leave a name, number or message; anticipating another visit from him probably wouldn’t improve Miss Brewster’s attitude.

He picked up a burger and fries at a fast food and ate them on his way to the public library.

The young woman on duty at the reference desk looked surprised when he asked for material on current methods of rejuvenation. “Starting early, aren’t you?”

“A stitch in time.”

“If we don’t have the information you need, you might try the medical library at Castle Hospital.”

“I just want a general idea of what’s being done in the field.”

“Okay. Be right back.”

She disappeared in the stacks and emerged a few minutes later carrying a magazine. “You’re in luck. The subject was researched a couple of months ago by one of the women’s magazines. It’s sketchy but it looks like the straight dope.”

“Thanks.”

“I get paid.”

“Not enough.”

“Now how did you know that?”

“A wild guess,” Aragon said, wondering if he would ever meet anyone who admitted being paid enough.

During the next half-hour he learned some of the hard facts and fiction about growing old and how to prevent it.

At the Institute of Geriatrics in Bucharest a drug called KH-3 was administered to cure heart disease, arthritis, impotence, wrinkles and grey hair.

In Switzerland injections of live lamb embryo glands were available to revitalize the body and prevent disease by slowing down the aging process.

A villa outside Rome offered tours of the countryside alternating with periods of deep sleep induced by a narcotic banned in the United States.

A Viennese clinic guaranteed loss of ugly cellulite, and not so ugly money, by means of hypnotherapy and massive doses of vitamins.

In the Bahamas the Center for Study and Application of Revitalization Therapies promised to help the mature individual counteract the pressures of contemporary life, and overcome sleeplessness, fatigue, loss of vigor, frigidity, impotence, poor muscle and skin tone, problems of weight, anxiety and premature aging. Many different techniques were used, including lamb-cell therapy, but here the cells were freeze-dried.

At an experimental lab in New York volunteer patients underwent plasmapheresis, a process in which a quantity of their blood was removed, the plasma taken out and the blood put back. The fresh new plasma which the body then created was the stuff of youth and supposed to make the patients look better, feel stronger and heal faster.

Nowhere in the article was there any mention of goats.

Aragon called Charity Nelson from the pay phone beside the checkout desk.

She wasn’t thrilled. “Oh, it’s you.”

“Listen, that rumor you heard about Mrs. Shaw, are you sure it was goats?”

“It was goats. What difference does it make? Where are you, anyway?”

“The library.”

“Wise up. You’re not going to find Mrs. Shaw at any library. She’s not the type.”

“I’m working on a hunch.”

“Well, don’t tell Smedler. He lost two grand playing one last week. Hunches won’t be popular around here until he figures out a way to deduct it from his income tax.”

“Will he?”

“Bet on it, junior.”

He reached the parking lot of the Penguin Club as Ellen Brewster was getting out of her car. It was a fairly new Volkswagen but it already had a couple of body dents that were beginning to rust in the sea air.

She didn’t notice, or at least acknowledge, his presence until he spoke.

“I see you got your car started.”

“Yes. The garage man came out and charged the battery.”

“Good.”

“Yes.”

“It could have been something more serious.”

“I suppose.” She pushed her hair back from her forehead with an impatient gesture. She had nice features. He wondered why they didn’t add up to make her a pretty woman. “Are you coming or going, Mr. Aragon?”

“A question I often ask myself.”

“Try answering.”

“I’m arriving. Is that all right with you, Miss Brewster?”

“It depends on what you want. If it’s the same thing you wanted this morning, I really can’t help you now any more than I could then. Really I can’t.”

“That’s one too many reallys.”

“It’s a speech habit I picked up from all the teenagers around this summer. You know, like you know.”

“I went to Mrs. Shaw’s house,” Aragon said. “It seems she took off in a hurry, didn’t even bother to lock the doors. What concerns my boss is that she was aware of the important papers she had to sign but she made no attempt to do it. Naturally there’s some question of whether she left voluntarily.”

“That’s a joke.”

“Is it private or do I get to laugh, too?”

“The question is not whether she left voluntarily but whether he did.”

The afternoon wind had begun blowing in from the sea, carrying the smell of tar from the underwater oil wells. It was a faint pervasive smell like a hint of doomsday.

“Forget I said that,” she added. “I’m not supposed to gossip about the members.”

“This ranks as a little more than gossip, Miss Brewster. I learned the man’s name this morning. Grady. He’s a friend of yours, isn’t he?”

“Did you learn that this morning, too?”

“Yes.”

“You were misinformed. He’s no friend of mine.”

She turned and walked away. He followed her. She was almost as tall as he was and their steps exactly matched, so they looked as though they were marching in single file.

“Miss Brewster.”

“If you already know so much, why did you come back here?”

“What’s his full name?”

“Grady Keaton.”

“Has he worked at the club long?”

“About six months.”

“Can you tell me something of his background?”

“He didn’t talk much about himself. Not to me anyway. Maybe to fifty other women.”

“Why fifty?”

“Why not? One thing I can tell you about Grady is his philosophy — why not? ”

They had reached the front door of the club but neither of them made any move to open it.They stood facing each other, almost eye to eye. Hers were green and very solemn. His were obscured by horn-rimmed glasses which needed cleaning.

Aragon said, “A minute ago you made it sound as though Mrs. Shaw had kidnapped an innocent lad. Now he’s not such a lad and not so innocent, and Mrs. Shaw had to take a number and wait in line. Which version are you sticking with?”

“Are you going to make trouble for him?”

“I might. It’s not my main objective, though. All I really want is Mrs. Shaw’s signature on some legal documents.”

“Why keep coming back here?”

“This is where she’s known, where her friends are.”

“I’m not sure she has friends at the club. She and her husband sort of dropped out of things when he began showing signs of senility, and after his death she didn’t come around for ages. When she finally did she talked to me more than anyone else, mostly chitchat about the weather, food, clothes. Nothing heavy or even interesting.”