Death Claims by Joseph Hansen Read Free Book Online Page B

salt. She tasted it, nodded approval, set it down with a delicate click and touched his hand again. "Talk about it, Davey." 
    He glanced at her and away. " You talk about it." 
    "Ah? Ready for an opinion now, are we?" 
    His laugh was short and wry. "You've had one prepared for some time." 
    "From the minute I met him. I thought I'd been masterfully deceptive about it. You knew?" 
    "That day at the raceway. The two of you with your heads together. The Ferrari owner, the Porsche owner. All that chat about Formula A versus Formula One, three litres versus five litres, V-eights versus flat twelves . . ." 
    New Year's it had been. Hard blue sky. Two-mile stretch of clean white grandstand. Flat black drag strip. Cars like toy-shop sharks, hammerheads. Crawling on squat tires. Then rawthroated engine roar. Track a jagged slash through new green landscaping. Along it McLarens, Lolas, BRMs screaming, snarling, skidding. For the inside, the front, the money. Average speed maybe ninety. Top speed maybe twice ninety. And off to the north, indifferent-brown mountains. Afterward, Doug, eyes shining, down in the clean concrete pit where the French team drank and laughed. Madge with him, very gay. Dave outside, above, hands jammed into car-coat pockets, shoulders hunched against wind that wrapped torn programs around his legs — watching, thoughtful. 
    "It was a little too real. Sure, you enjoyed it. But not that much. And not that way. You don't enjoy things that way. Doug didn't know, but I knew." 
    "Mmm." She had a mouthful of tequila, lemon, salt. She shook her head, swallowed. "No, no. You mustn't think I don't like him. I do. That makes it sadder." 
    "Than what?" 
    A hand touched his shoulder. He turned. A silver-haired man smiled deferentially. He wore a robe of brown velvet, ankle length, open down the front, gold-edged, with hanging sleeves. Am an attendant lord , Dave thought, one that will do to swell a progress . . . . 
    "The dining room is beginning to fill, sir. May I reserve a table for you and the lady?" 
    "Thank you." Dave slid a bill from his wallet and folded it in the man's hand. "Not too near the fire, please. And can you leave us a menu?" 
    He did. It was folio size, the parchment cover stamped with the shield, the hound, the hawk, in crusty gilt. He dug out his reading glasses, let the bows fall open, slipped them on, opened the menu and turned it so the torchlight flickered on the lists. Crude blackletter type. Quaint spelling. 
    "No four-and-twenty blackbirds?" he wondered. 
    "Steak-and-kidney pie." Madge pointed it out. Steke & Kydney Pye was how the hired scholar had rendered it. "It's beyond belief." 
    "Like the rest of the place." Dave dropped the menu, clicked the glasses shut, pushed them away. "Hungry?" And when she nodded, he stubbed out his cigarette, laid bills on the bar, got down from his stool and handed Madge off hers. "Send another margarita to our table, please." 
    "Another Glenlivet for you, sir?" The barmaid's accent was Hollywood Cockney. 
    "Thanks." He nodded and moved with Madge to the crooked steps again and down to where the firelight now had human faces to ruddy. The waiters were playing-card characters from Alice in Wonderland . Belted, open-sided tunics, green velvet, hound and hawk stitched in gold on the back. Yellow tights, a riband at the knee. Loose shirts with puffed white sleeves. They looked embarrassed. Dave wondered if their wives laughed at them. Their kids wouldn't — not kids these days. The problem would be to keep the kids from expropriating. Especially the slouchy yellow velveteen caps. Their waiter was missing his. Dave bet it was at a drive-in movie right now, a basketball game, a taco stand. After their drinks had arrived and he'd ordered and spoken to the cellarer — in a robe like the host's, only wine red, of course — he lit cigarettes for himself and Madge and asked her: 
    "Why did you wait till now?" 
    "Because you're the giver of wise counsel.