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.Where’d she let it go?”“Far enough.”“I think she resents me for calling you all the time.”She smoothed pleated white hair, tweaked a bulbous nose.Her cheeks glowed, smooth as a child’s.Fat’s a great wrinkle filler.Cardenas said, “Of course she doesn’t.”Mavis Wembley said, “She most certainly does,” and massaged an arm of her throne.The chair was slip-covered in blue-and-white duck cloth, like something from a Hamptons pictorial.Everything else on the porch was tubular aluminum and plastic straps.“New upholstery?” said Cardenas.Mavis Wembley slapped her magazine against a dimpled knee.“Like it?”“Very pretty.”“Pottery Barn, George.Love those catalogs, the whole world opens up to you.Especially suited for living in a metropolis like this one.”Another slap of the magazine.The New Yorker.Cardenas said, “Didn’t know you subscribe.”“I don’t,” she said.“They sent me one of those special offers.Four free months and then you can cancel, no charge.I figured to cancel but now I’m not sure.They tend to go on too long — don’t you be like that when you write your book, George, the key is to communicate not to pontificate.But they do have some interesting tidbits.This one has a story about a New York Jew who sews fur coats for those Negro rappers.All those agitators screaming about cruelty to critters but this Jew keeps making ermine sweatshirts and the like.A man with backbone.”Cardenas said, “Keep leaving food out, Mavis, and we can send him a bunch of skins.”“Nice little ca-yote coat for the rappers.” She cackled.“Wouldn’t that be cute.Who’s your cute friend? Another policeman or another writer?”“He’s a psychologist, Mavis.”She gazed up at me.“I’ve known some people who could use one of those.As in mother-in-laws.What brings you here?”“I’m looking into the murders of Leonora Bright and Vicki—”“Tranh.Well, you came to the right place because I know who did it.”Cardenas hitched his trousers.His holstered gun wobbled.“Really.”“Really, George.And I told that to Wendell Salmey right in the beginning.Not that he did a darn thing about it.” To me: “Chronic depression, that one.And lazier than a welfare cheat.Always in a low mood, walking with his eyes down, like anything worth discovering was on the ground.”She fanned herself with the magazine.“After that son of his got drunk and smashed himself up on the highway, he got even worse, just sat around all day doing nothing.Before I got married, I did some teaching and Wendell was one of my students.One of those who’d rather coast than drive.Only reason he took the sheriff job was he figured there’d be nothing to do — no offense, George.” More denture display.“One advantage to being ninety is you say what you want and get away with it.”“Didn’t know you had a birthday, Mavis.”“So I’m pushing it a little.The big day’s next month, on the sixteenth in case you intend to send me flowers, George.Wendell Salmey died young.Bleeding ulcer at fifty-nine.By the way, what’s a psychologist got to do with Leonora and the Oriental girl?”“Their murders might be related to a current case in L.A.”“Doesn’t answer my question.”“I sometimes consult to the police.”“One of those mind readers, like on TV?”“Not really—”“I’m kidding.I know what a psychologist does.Geez, everyone in this generation’s so doggone serious.So, he killed someone else, huh?”“Who?”“Leonora’s brother.Half brother.That’s who killed her and the nail girl.George, would you be real nice and get me a Fresca and a slice of American cheese from the kitchen? Make it two slices, got the packet laid out on the counter along with a cute little cutting tool from The Sharper Image.”Cardenas went to fill the order.I pulled up a chair.Mavis Wembley nibbled her cheese and swigged from the can of soda.Handing the empty to Cardenas, she wiped her mouth and looked out at her weedy plot with satisfaction.“I know the brother did it because Leonora confided in me a few weeks before that she was deathly afraid of him.They had different mothers but the same father and it was the father who had money and he died a few months before she confided in me that she was scared.”I said, “Worried about an inheritance conflict?”“Not worried, scared.That’s the word she used.”“What’s the brother’s name?” said Cardenas.“Don’t know, she never mentioned it, always referred to him as ‘my half brother.’ Emphasis on half.Making it clear there was no closeness there.”I said, “How’d the topic come up?”“She was color-rinsing me and kept dropping stuff, real butterfingered.Which wasn’t like Leonora, she’d always been a real coordinated girl.Magic hands, I used to call her.Sometimes she’d toss in a neck-and-scalp massage and that was better than… anyway, when she moved here from Frisco, all the gals were happy because of her skills.Before that we had Sarah Burkhardt who grew up here, borderline retarded if you ask me, taught herself from books, about as stylish as roadkill.We put up with her because she was all we had.Thank God she married a truck driver and moved away and we got Leonora.Who learned her trade in Frisco from a top homosexual stylist.”“Magic hands,” I said, “but not that day.”“Fumbly fingers.I asked her what was wrong.She said nothing.I said, Come on, don’t be holding back, there’s no one else here.Which there wasn’t.Just me and Leonora in the salon.She was good but there wasn’t that much call for her services, our local females believing they could do just as well with a box of Toni.If you saw them, you’d find that laughable.”She asked Cardenas for another soda.When he returned to the house, she said, “We’ll wait for George.So I don’t have to repeat myself.”“Sure.I appreciate this [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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