Bride of the Rat God by Barbara Hambly Read Free Book Online

drawers, Fishy?”
    “Just some letters. Jesus, how many kids did Sandringham take up with?”
    “Burn ‘em. We’re on our way.”
    “Keith Pelletier murdered ?” Christine stared aghast from the lace fantasia of pillow shams and convent-embroidered sheets. Though the bed, with its gilded cupids and outspread swan wings, was pure DeMille, its hangings had been replaced with rich and glossy Chinese silks upon which dragons cavorted with flamingos. A brass Buddha meditated in a curtained niche, gold and crimson tassels dangled like immense fuchsias from rafters painted with more dragons, and a sort of pagoda of black lacquer and gold-embroidered scarlet silk transformed what had been the ceiling fixture into an opium-den dream. Amid all this Christine sat, clutching her fragile batiste nightgown to her bosom. “And Frank and Fishy coming here ? That only gives me thirty minutes to get some makeup on!”
    She bolted out of bed with the mightiest turn of prebreakfast speed Norah had yet seen her sister-in-law produce and flung herself into the en suite bathroom to dash handfuls of cold water on her face. “Darling, would you save my life and go get me some coffee? Oh, I’m sorry, my little sweetnesses, Mother doesn’t have time to say good morning to her angel muffins today.” With a great clatter of toenails on the cream and violet bathroom tiles—the Celestial Empire did not extend beyond the connecting door—the three Pekes, which had followed Norah up the stairs, orbited Christine’s ankles, staring up at her with concern in their dark, childlike eyes.
    The telephone was ringing again as Norah descended the stairs to the hall. Feeling as if she were moving with the preternatural slowness of dreams, she answered it. The voice on the other end brought, curiously, a rush of relief.
    “Mrs. Blackstone? This is Alec Mindelbaum.”
    “Oh, Mr. Mindelbaum!” Why on earth, she wondered, should she feel rescued? Not exactly rescued—upheld. “I take it Mr. Brown reached you.”
    “Just now. He told me to come up there. Is this all right with you and Christine?”
    “Well, we’re about to be invaded by Mr. Brown and Mr. Fishbein and then, in all probability, the police, so I suppose the more the merrier. Christine is putting on her makeup now.”
    “The woman never disappoints me. How are you?”
    He asked as if it meant something to him, so Norah gave it a few moments thought. “I think I’m having trouble believing it really happened, though another part of me feels quite shocked.” That arrogant hand on Mr. Sandringham’s arm kept coming back to her mind, and the look of genuine, hopeless adoration in Mr. Sandringham’s eyes. You know what love is.... “I—I think I would welcome a little sane support.”
    “You’re not going to get any from Chris. It’ll take me maybe half an hour to get there. I live clear down in Venice. Don’t let Brown and Fishy bully you—and don’t sign anything.”
    He rang off. As she put the receiver back into its hooks, Norah glimpsed something gray moving outside the breakfast room’s bay window. A man, poking among the thick oleanders that masked the stone foundation. The reporters who had crowded the lobby of the Million Dollar Theater sprang at once to mind, and with a refined oath, Norah crossed to the front door and let herself out onto the high concrete porch.
    “May I help you?” she inquired in her most freezing voice.
    A moment later, seeing that the man was climbing the hillside to investigate the masses of foliage, she thought, Police.
    He turned. It was the ancient Chinese gentleman from the theater.
    “Indeed you may, good lady.” The soft voice was unmistakable. The bartered blue coat and the faded gray shirt were flecked with rain and far too big for his long, thin frame. One arthritic hand gripped the staff he’d carried the previous night; with the other, he brushed aside the water dripping into his eyes.
    “It is the lady with the lion-dogs,”