Лоуренс Блок - One Night Stands and Lost Weekends

“Don’t expect anything.”

“I don’t.”

“I’ll do what I can,” I told him.

Before I caught a cab from Headquarters to my apartment, I told Mark to call his lawyer. He wouldn’t be able to get out on bail because there is no bail in first-degree murder cases; but a lawyer could do a lot of helpful things for him. Lynn Farwell’s family had to be told that there wasn’t going to be a wedding.

I don’t envy anyone who has to call a mother or father at 3 A.M. and explain that their daughter’s wedding, set for 10:30 that very morning, must be postponed because the potential bridegroom has been arrested for murder.

I sat back in the cab with an unlit pipe in my mouth and a lot of aimless thoughts rumbling around in my head. Nothing made much sense vet. Perhaps nothing ever would. It was that kind of a deal.

Morning was noisy, ugly, and several hours premature. A sharp, persistent ringing stabbed my brain into a semiconscious state. I cursed and groped for the alarm clock... turned it off. The buzzing continued. I reached for the phone, lifted the receiver to my ear, and listened to a dial tone. The buzzing continued. I cursed even more vehemently and stumbled out of bed. I found a bathrobe and groped into it. I splashed cold water on my face and blinked at myself in the mirror. I looked as bad as I felt.

The doorbell kept ringing. I didn’t want to answer it, but that seemed the only way to make it stop ringing. I listened to my bones creak on the way to the door. I turned the knob, opened the door, and blinked at the blonde who was standing there. She blinked back at me.

“Mister,” she said. “You look terrible.”

She didn’t. Even at that ghastly hour she looked like a toothpaste ad. Her hair was blond silk and her eyes were blue jewels and her skin was creamed perfection. With a thinner body and a more severe mouth she could have been a Vogue model. But the body was just too bountiful for the fashion magazines. The breasts were a perfect 38, high and large, the waist trim, the hips a curved invitation.

“You’re Ed London?”

I nodded foolishly.

“I’m Lynn Farwell.”

She didn’t have to tell me. She looked exactly like what my client had said he was going to marry, except a little better. Everything about her stated emphatically that she was from Long Island’s North Shore, that she had gone to an expensive finishing school and a ritzy college, that her family had half the money in the world.

“May I come in?”

“You got me out of bed,” I grumbled.

“I’m sorry. I wanted to talk to you.”

“Could you sort of go somewhere and come back in about ten minutes? I’d like to get human.”

“I don’t really have anyplace to go. May I just sit in your living room or something? I’ll be quiet.”

There are a pair of matching overstuffed leather chairs in my living room, the kind they have in British men’s clubs. She curled up and got lost in one of them. I left her there and ducked back into the bedroom. I showered, shaved, dressed. When I came out again the world was a somewhat better place. I smelled coffee.

“I put up a pot of java.” She smiled. “Hope you don’t mind.”

“I couldn’t mind less,” I said. We waited while the coffee dripped through. I poured out two cups, and we both drank it black.

“I haven’t seen Mark,” she said. “His lawyer called. I suppose you know all about it, of course.”

“More or less.”

“I’ll be seeing Mark later this afternoon, I suppose. We were supposed to be getting married in” — she looked at her watch — “a little over an hour.”

She seemed unperturbed. There were no tears, not in her eyes and not in her voice. She asked me if I was still working for Donahue. I nodded.

“He didn’t kill that girl,” she said.

“I don’t think he did.”

“I’m sure. Of all the ridiculous things... Why did he hire you, Ed?”

I thought a moment and decided to tell her the truth. She probably knew it anyway. Besides, there was no point in sparing her the knowledge that her fiancé had a mistress somewhere along the line. That should be the least of her worries, compared to a murder rap.

It was. She greeted the news with a half-smile and shook her head sadly. “Now why on earth would they think she could blackmail him?” Lynn Farwell demanded. “I don’t care who he slept with... Policemen are asinine.”

I didn’t say anything. She sipped her coffee, stretched a little in the chair, crossed one leg over the other. She had very nice legs.

We both lit cigarettes. She blew out a cloud of smoke and looked at me through it, her blue eyes narrowing. “Ed,” she said, “how long do you think it’ll be before he’s cleared?”

“It’s impossible to say, Miss Farwell.”

“Lynn.”

“Lynn. It could take a day or a month.”

She nodded thoughtfully. “He has to be cleared as quickly as possible. That’s the most important thing. There can’t be any scandal, Ed. Oh, a little dirt is bearable. But nothing serious, nothing permanent.”

Something didn’t sound right. She didn’t care who he slept with, but no scandal could touch them — this was vitally important to her. She sounded like anything but a loving bride-to-be.

She read my mind. “I don’t sound madly in love, do I?”

“Not particularly.”

She smiled kittenishly. “I’d like more coffee, Ed...”

I got more for both of us.

Then she said, “Mark and I don’t love each other, Ed.”

I grunted noncommittally.

“We like each other, though. I’m fond of Mark, and he’s fond of me. That’s all that matters, really.”

“Is it?”

She nodded positively. Finishing schools and high-toned colleges produce girls with the courage of their convictions. “It’s enough,” she said. “Love’s a poor foundation for marriage in the long run. People who love are too... too vulnerable. Mark and I are perfect for each other. We’ll both be getting something out of this marriage.”

“What will Mark get?”

“A rich wife. A proper connection with an important family. That’s what he wants.”

“And you?”

“A respectable marriage to a promising young man.”

“If that’s all you want—”

“It’s all I want,” she said. “Mark is good company. He’s bright, socially acceptable, ambitious enough to be stimulating. He’ll make a good husband and a good father. I’m happy.”

She yawned again and her body uncoiled in the chair. The movement drew her breasts into sharp relief against the front of her sweater. This was supposed to be accidental. I knew better.

“Besides,” she said, her voice just slightly husky, “he’s not at all bad in bed.”

I wanted to slap her well-bred face. The lips were slightly parted now, her eyes a little less than half lidded. The operative term, I think, is provocative. She knew damned well what she was doing with the coy posing and the sex talk and all the rest. She had the equipment to carry it off, too. But it was a horrible hour on a horrible Sunday morning, and her fiancé was also my client, and he was sitting in a cell, booked on suspicion of homicide.

So I neither took her to bed nor slapped her face. I let the remark die in the stuffy air and finished my second cup of coffee. There was a rack of pipes on the table next to my chair. I selected a sandblast Barling and stuffed some tobacco into it. I lit it and smoked.

“Ed?”

I looked at her.

“I didn’t mean to sound cheap.”

“Forget it.”

“All right.” A pause. “Ed, you’ll find a way to clear Mark, won’t you?”

“I’ll try.”

“If there’s any way I can help—”