Back Bay by William Martin Read Free Book Online

the services you render and did not request you for professional reasons. Although”—Pratt prided himself on his charm—“it was a pleasure doing business with you. I asked for you specifically because I collect poems, and I think you may have one that I’m interested in.”
    “Well, I’m not interested.” She jumped out of bed and began to dress. “If you want poems, go to a library.”
    Pratt slipped into a pair of beige slacks and a striped St. Laurent shirt. “I’ll explain on the way.”
    “To where?”
    “Your place.”
    “We’re not going to my place.”
    Pratt opened his wallet and took out a wad of bills. “There are ten one-hundred-dollar bills in my hand,” he said. “They’re yours. You pay no taxes on them, nor does your madam take a commission. All you need to do is take me to your house and help me find what I’m looking for.”
    The money softened her. “Before we go anywhere, you tell me what we’re looking for.”
    “Have you ever heard of John Milton?”
    She thought for a moment. “Wasn’t he with the Morris Agency?”
    Pratt smiled. He was hoping she’d be ignorant, but this was extraordinary. “He’s a poet. About eighty years ago, an old woman up in Monterey embroidered a series of samplers with quotes from his poems. I’ve collected several of them. I need one more to complete the set. It’s a gift for my wife.” Pratt wasn’t married. “She collects samplers.”
    “What makes you think I have this thing?”
    “Well, if my research is correct, the old lady was your great-grandmother.”
    Sally Korbel recalled that her mother had given her two boxes of family junk just before she died. Sally had never looked through them. “I think I know what you’re looking for,” she lied. “But I want payment in advance, and no refunds if it’s not there.”
    Pratt offered her five hundred. She took it.
    The stucco apartment building spread like pink mold across the Santa Monica neighborhood. “Twenty units, one-two bedrooms, no vacancy.” Pratt read the sign with great interest. California real estate was an excellent investment.
    Sally Korbel’s apartment was three rooms with white walls, green carpeting, and a view of someone else’s bedroom windows.
    “A high-priced professional like you should be living in Malibu,” said Pratt.
    “I pay three-fifty for this place, and that’s cheap if you want to live three blocks from the beach.”
    She slid back the ceiling panel above her bed and took down two boxes. Pratt tried to seem relaxed as they dug through photographs, news clippings, and envelopes stuffed with old letters. In the bottom of the second box, they found it. The frame was scratched and the glass was caked with dust, but a quotation from Milton was woven into the cloth in brown and red threads.
    Pratt read it to himself. “So he with difficulty and labor hard/Mov’d on… /Sin and Death amain/Following his track, such was the will of Heav’n,/Pav’d after him a broad and beat’n way/Over the dark Abyss, whose boiling Gulf/Tamely endur’d a Bridge of wondrous length/From Hell continu’d reaching th’utmost Orb/Of this frail World; by which the Spirits perverse/With easy intercourse pass to and fro/To tempt or punish mortals, except whom/God and good Angels guard by special grace.”
    “Exquisite,” whispered Pratt.
    “That’s it?” Sally Korbel was amazed. “No shit?”
    “None whatsoever.”
    She grabbed the sampler. “You’d better come up with fifteen hundred if you want it, mister. If you can pay a thousand for this, you can pay two.”
    Pratt had been expecting that. He haggled with her and eventually paid another thousand dollars for the sampler. He didn’t tell her that he would have paid fifty if she’d held out for it.
    “I hope your wife likes it, Mr. Weatherman.”
    “Nothing could make her happier.”
    Mr. Soames was waiting when Pratt returned to the suite.
    “Book the next flight, Bennett.”
    “You were