Cinderella by Ed McBain Read Free Book Online Page A

artery.)
        "Profession like yours, you can settle anywhere, I guess."
        "Oh, sure."
        "Just take a pair of scissors with you," Larkin said, and smiled.
        "Sure. Actually, though, I may leave the business altogether. I just don't know yet."
        "Quit being a barber?" Larkin said.
        "A stylist, yes," Vincent said.
        "What would you do?"
        "Live the good life," Vincent said. "Become a degenerate. Who knows?"
        "Takes money to live the good life," Larkin said.
        "Well… I've saved a bit," Vincent said.
        "Where would you go?"
        "Asia maybe," Vincent said.
        Larkin could just imagine him in Asia. Bunch of hairless Chinese fags smoking dope, Vincent in the middle of them wearing a long blue gown, ice-blue gown like the one Cinderella was wearing at the Jacaranda Ball. He could never get used to saying it the way the Cubans did-Hacaranda. To him it was Jack be nimble, Jack be quick, Jack Aranda. Listen, what's in a name? His own maiden name was David Largura. All his wop cousins had names like Salvatore and Silvio and Ignazio and Umberto, his mother comes up with David, a Jewish name. Largura meant "space" in Italian. Changed it to Larkin back, oh, thirty years ago must've been. You called him Mr. Largura now, he wouldn't know who the fuck you meant. He'd been Larkin longer than he'd been Largura.
        How do you do, my name is David Larkin.
        Hi. I'm Angela West.
        Want to have your picture taken, Angela?
        Sure, why not?
        "Sri Lanka," Vincent said. "Or Goa. Or Bali in the South Pacific. Lots of places a person can go."
        (In Miami Beach at that moment an ambulance was carting away the body of the knifing victim. A man picking his teeth outside the hotel said the lady who got juked was Alice Carmody, the junkie who lived in 2A.)
        "Lots of places to go if you've got the money," Larkin said.
        Want to come home with me, Angela?
        Sure, why not?
        All so simple. Gorgeous girl in her twenties, he's fifty-three, it never occurs to him she might be a pro. Well, listen, he kept himself in good shape, jogged on the beach, worked out at Nautilus. He'd even been to bed with teenagers who said he looked terrific, two of them together one time, took care of them both very nicely, thank you, no complaints. Pizzichi e bad non fanno buchi -his mother used to say that. It meant you could kiss and pinch all you wanted, it wouldn't leave scars. Pizzichi e bad no fanno buchi. Wrong, Mama.
        Want your picture taken? Sure, why not? Watch the birdie, click, click, click.
        Want to come home with me? Sure, why not? Pinches and kisses. But plenty of scars later, Mama. Molti buchi.
        Angela West, my ass.
        Catch up with her, he'd give her Angela West.
        "Or Thailand," Vincent said. "Lots of places."
        As Vincent's scissors snipped away, the men continued talking about Asia. Neither of them had ever been there, and they were full of speculations about it.
        In Miami at about that time, Ernesto and Domingo were just entering the Sunshine State Parkway, driving a red Chrysler LeBaron convertible on their way north to Orlando.
        Domingo confessed that he had found Alice Carmody quite charming and attractive. What he said, actually, was "Me gustarfa culiarla."
        

4
        
        During the summer months, the weather forecasts in Calusa were the same day after day after day. Temperature in the nineties. Humidity in the nineties. Showers in the afternoon. Clearing before evening. Temperature in the nineties again. Humidity the same as it was before the showers. There was, Matthew supposed, something to be said for dependability. On the other hand, there was nothing quite so boring as predictability.
        He had put on a tan tropical-weight suit when he'd left for the office that Tuesday morning. By two o'clock that afternoon, as he