City of Ghosts (A Miranda Corbie Mystery) by Kelli Stanley Read Free Book Online Page B

doors.
    Rick’s broken-down fedora was in his hands, along with Miranda’s velveteen coat. He slapped the hat on his head and pulled her away from the wall, draping the coat around her shoulders.
    “It’s foggy as hell out here. You’re goddamn well going to catch pneumonia if you’re not more careful.”
    College boys in a depot hack drove by, necks craning out between the pillars of the wooden framework. One let out a wolf whistle. Rick left a hand on her shoulder, walked around to face her.
    “Gonzales was obviously tight. I wouldn’t have slugged him. Probably not, anyway. Miranda … Miranda, look at me.”
    She tilted her head up, blew a stream of smoke from the corner of her mouth.
    “You ready to go to the Picasso show?”
    He took off his hat and ran fingers through his dark brown hair, thick strands separating, a few falling in his face. Frustration made his voice scratchy.
    “Jesus Christ, Miranda, you can’t just pick up and leave and not talk about this. What the hell happened in there? I mean, I appreciate you defending my honor and ability to choose a good Porterhouse and all that, but I thought—I thought you liked the guy. What happened?”
    She dropped the cigarette stub, stamped it out three times. Looked down at her feet and the new open-toed pumps she’d had dyed to match the gown.
    “I wasn’t just defending you. He asked me to marry him.”
    Rick’s eyebrows climbed into his hairline.
    “He what?”
    “You heard me.”
    He stood staring down at her, breathing hard, then grabbed her by both shoulders, hands rough and voice sharp.
    “And you said what?”
    Miranda shook him off angrily. “What the fuck do you think I said, Sanders? He’s not in love with me. He doesn’t even know me. It’s ten to nine, let’s get to the Picasso show. And tell me your idea about my mother.”
    His eyes roamed hers, blue against brown, and he took her by the shoulders again in a tight grip.
    “Goddamn it, Miranda…”
    He kissed her. Hard and deep and angry, and she caught her breath at the fury in it, surprised, relenting, until she realized what was happening and brought up her arms as hard as she could, shoving him away. The sound of applause rippled through the waiting crowd at the Moderne, along with shouts and a few jeers.
    His lips were smeared with Red Dice lipstick, eyes burning, jaw set.
    She wiped her mouth with her hand, out of breath, voice shaking. Legs shaking.
    “I’ll forgive you for that, Sanders, as long as you forget it. But if you ever try to treat me like a piece of meat again, I’ll break your fucking arm.”
    Rick swallowed a few times, eyes on her face.
    “Guess I was overcome by your perfume. They ought to put a warning label on that stuff.”
    She straightened her coat and buttoned it. Tried to sound casual.
    “Bought the last bottle of Vol de Nuit at the City of Paris. No more French perfume until it’s really French again.”
    He gave her a crooked smile, wiping his mouth with his dirty display handkerchief.
    “Maybe that’s a good thing.”
    She held his eyes for a few seconds, then turned and nodded toward Market Street.
    “Let’s catch a cab to the Picasso exhibit.”
    *   *   *
    Academics and socialites trickled in by the score, fashionably late to the fashionable show, cabs and chauffeurs pulling up to the Veterans Building, twin to the War Memorial Opera House across the landscaped Memorial Court.
    San Francisco, the city that rose from the dead to shimmer like a pearl at the Panama-Pacific Exposition, just nine short years after the Quake and Fire nearly killed her. Rebuild her for the opera lovers and aging Russian ballerinas, rebuild her for the symphony creaking by with Mendelssohn, rebuild her for the arts. Make her look like Paris, the Paris of the West.
    Then the Great War, inconvenient interlude for the fund-raising class. But once it was over, the War to End All Wars, they named one of the buildings for veterans, Green Room lounge on the