Head Games (The Hector Lassiter Series) by Craig McDonald Read Free Book Online Page B

shook out a Pall Mall and lit it up.
    The swimmer must have seen the flare from my Zippo. She immediately sank low, feet first, arms crossing over her breasts. She glared at me with the dark-eyed echo of my dead wife's and dead daughter's black Spanish eyes, long raven hair, now plastered to dusky skin. I muttered, " Pérdon," and turned my back to her, ass to the rail.
    A few minutes later, she was standing beside me, her blue gingham dress clinging to wet curves. "That was not very nice," she said.
    "I'm perhaps not a very nice man." I smiled. "But tonight I wish that I was." I offered her the decanter of brandy and she sniffed at it and then sipped from it.
    She eyed my cigarette. I shook one loose, put it in my mouth and did my one-handed Zippo trick, holding my own cigarette in my left hand. I pocketed the Zippo and took the cigarette from my mouth, gently placing it between her ruby pillow lips. She arched an eyebrow. "You are Héctor Lassiter, yes?"
    It wasn't really a question. I nodded.
    "I recognize you from the photographs on the backs of your books." My new friend shrugged. "And I've heard much about you from Miss Dietrich. She has been waiting for you. You'll follow me, yes?"
    Forever, yes .
    I followed the pretty, dark-haired girl back across the beach, back across the movie set, down an alley to a trailer. I would have followed her to Galveston if she had led the way. I said, "What are you to the Kraut? Are you an assistant, maybe? Understudy, perhaps? Or something else?" I let that last hang there. Marlene, famously, wasn't one to limit her options in bed.
    The girl smiled and knocked on the trailer door and stepped aside. "It was so nice to meet you, Mr. Lassiter." I gently squeezed the Mexican girl's arm. I said, "You got a name, hon'?"
    She smiled and shrugged: "It is not important."
    "Not true. It is very important to me."
    She smiled and slipped from my grip. "So nice of you to say so."
    I watched her sway away ... this unnamed beauty. Her head was tipped back to feel the breeze across her long neck. She was smoking the cigarette I'd given her. I took a last swig of brandy and tossed the empty decanter under the trailer.
    The trailer door opened a crack --- opened with a squeak. This dark face with chiseled cheekbones was peering at me; disarmingly dark hair and burning eyes. Marlene turned her head a bit; considered me through the cracked door.
    I was taken aback by her hesitation. It had been a few years, granted. We hadn't crossed paths since Paris, during the liberation, staying in touch by phone. It had been a few miles and a few too many drinks, maybe. But, Jesus Christ, had I truly slid that much? I said, "Christ, Kraut, don't you know me? I'm Hector Lassiter."
    Marlene Dietrich smiled. She feinted a playful swing at my chin. She held her thumbs just like Papa had taught her to so she wouldn't break them on impact. Gutturally, she said, "Ah, Hec, you look like hell, sweetheart."

    We sat on the steps of her trailer, passing back and forth a bottle of Spanish red wine --- it was too sweltering to go inside.
    I took a swig, then handed the bottle back to her. "I may look like 'hell,' but you look stunning, Mar."
    Marlene smiled and sipped the wine.
    In vino veritas :
    She said, "You're a mess, honey. But you've had a wicked year. I'm so sorry ... so very very sorry ... for your ... for your loss. I know what Dolores meant to you." Dolores ... my daughter. The Kraut was right. So many months since I've heard my daughter's name spoken aloud, but my little girl had become my world in the too-short time that she was alive. Marlene sent my baby girl stuffed animals and music boxes. I could feel my composure slipping.
    I took the bottle from Marlene's dyed hand and drank deeply of the wine. I smelled something from her trailer. I checked my Timex. "Christ, Kraut, you been cooking something this late?"
    "Perhaps." She smiled and stroked my cheek. "How are you doing Hec? Really?"
    "Surviving. Writing.