If Dying Was All by Ron Goulart Read Free Book Online Page A

hurried up and tugged at Easy’s arm. “Listen, I hear Easy does it.” He pumped his tiny fist into Easy’s side three times. “Hello, Mona-Mona. They’re looking good.” He reached out and tickled the underside of her right breast. “That’s clever. Being Mona-Mona. One Mona for each one. I’ve heard of the California climate being good for growing things but this is ridiculous.” He punched Easy once again and jigged away into the crowd.
    “That was Tully Lent, the comic.” The actress gave Easy her glass to hold while she readjusted the front of her dress. “He has a breast fixation. Who doesn’t around here?”
    A six-foot tall Negro came over and picked Mona-Mona up and lifted her several feet into the air. “Love you,” he told her and set her down.
    “Hello, Ranch. John, do you know Ranch Newbin? Ranch, John Easy, the noted private investigator. Ranch is an actor.”
    “Almost,” said the black man. “Actually up until last month I was quarterback with the Yazoo Desperadoes. My good looks have spelled ruin for my sports career, however. I should have sensed something last season when my teammates voted me the best looking quarterback in the South. That’s something when those crackers vote a spook handsome.” He reached out and gave the tall actress a hug. “I tested for the part in Blow Job. I haven’t heard anything for sure yet, Mona-Mona. Have you?”
    “No, but I’m getting very positive hints, Ranch.”
    To Easy the new black actor said, “I was moderately nervous. Since for most of the test they were shooting only the lower portion of my body. I’m handsome down there, too, but it’s my face, after all, that’s my fortune.”
    “You radiate charisma,” the golden-haired actress assured him.
    “Even in those crotch shots?”
    Easy grinned at both of them and wandered away. Hagopian was not yet here at the late afternoon gathering. Easy hadn’t spotted Judy Teller either.
    “Listen. I hear you’re a private dick. I always take mine out in private, too.” Tully Lent danced around him and went to join a group of three platinum blond men.
    “Say, John Easy, isn’t it?” asked a chubby, quietly dressed man to his left.
    “Yes.”
    “I’m Harry Dryden. I interviewed you once for a piece I was doing for the LA Times. That was in my pre-howl days.”
    “Oh, yeah, hello, Dryden. Pre-howl?”
    “You know my wife, don’t you? Calls herself Jane Barham when she writes. Independent little bitch.” The chubby man turned his head from left to right, slowly, a few times. “She seems to have moved away at the moment. Independent little bitch. She’s got a novel which is number three on the bestseller list right this minute.” Dryden chuckled. “I’m not jealous at all. Not bothered one bit. Would have been in my pre-howl days.”
    “Pre-howl?” repeated Easy.
    “Therapy,” explained the chubby, young writer. “We drive up to Carmel once a week to attend sessions at a private institution. Now, the notion behind howl therapy, Easy, is simply this …”
    Easy saw the slim, red-haired Judy Teller standing by herself at one of the wide windows. Her chin was resting on the rim of her glass. There was a dark, angry look on her pretty face. “Excuse me, Dryden. I have to check something.”
    “Well, go ahead, you big son of a bitch. Leave me standing here like my independent little bitch of a wife,” said Dryden. “Boy, if I wasn’t so benefited from my howl therapy I’d be pissed off at you.”
    Tully Lent spun by Easy as he worked his way over to the small girl television columnist. Lent said, “Listen, Easy. I hear you’ve been under more beds than a chamber pot.”
    When he reached the side of Judy Teller, Easy said, “Miss Teller.”
    “Go tell him I don’t want to talk to him,” she said, not turning. “He’s a rat.” She glanced back and her lavender-shadowed eyes opened wider. “Oh, you’re not a go-between, are you?”
    “Not between you and a rat,