Mortal Stakes by Robert B. Parker Read Free Book Online

whichever way he turns. He feels commitment to play the game as best he can and to protect his wife and family as best he can. Both those commitments are probably absolute, and the point when they conflict must be sharp.”
    Brenda sipped some wine and looked at me without saying anything.
    “A quarter for your thoughts if you accept Diners Club?”
    She smiled. “You sound sort of caught up in all this.
    Maybe you’re talking some about yourself too. I think maybe you are.”
    I leered at her. “Want me to tell you about the movie Mrs. Rabb was in and what they did?”
    “You think I need pointers?” Brenda said.
    “When we stop learning, we stop growing,” I said.
    “And you got us off that subject nicely, didn’t you?”
    I had once again qualified for membership in the clean plate club by then, and we had begun a second bottle of wine.
    “You have to get back to work?” I said.
    “No, I took the afternoon off. I had the feeling lunch would stretch out.”
    “That’s good,” I said, and filled my wineglass again.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN
    I SPENT A GOOD DEAL of time thinking about how to get the master print of Suburban Fancy from Patricia Utley and consequently spent not very much time sleeping till about 4:00 A.M. I didn’t think of anything before I fell asleep, and when I woke up, it was almost 10 and I hadn’t thought of anything while I slept. I was shaving at 10:20 when there was a knock at the door. I opened it with a towel around my middle, and there was a porter with a neat square package.
    “Mr. Spenser?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Gentleman asked me to give this to you.”
    I took it, went to the bureau, found two quarters, and gave them to the porter. He said thank you and went away. I closed the door and sat on the bed and opened the package. It was a canister of film. In the package was a note typed on white parchment paper.
    Spenser, This is the master print of Suburban Fancy. I have destroyed the remaining two copies in my possession. My records show a copy sold to the gentleman we discussed last night. There are ten other copies outstanding, but I can find no pattern in their distribution. You will have to deal with the gentleman mentioned above. I wish you success in that.
    Doing this violates good business practice and has cost me a good deal more than the money involved.
    Violet would not have done it.
    Yours, Patricia C. Utley She had signed it with a black felt-tipped pen in handwriting so neat it looked like type. I’d wasted a sleepless night.
    I got out the Manhattan Yellow Pages from the bedside table and looked under “Photographic Equipment” till I found a store in my area that rented projectors. I was going to have to look at the film. If it turned out to be a film on traffic safety, or VD prevention, I would look like an awful goober. Patricia Utley had no reason particularly to lie to me but I was premising too much on the film’s authenticity to proceed without looking.
    I had mediocre eggs Benedict in the hotel coffee shop and went out and got my projector. Walking back up Fiftyseventh Street with it, I felt furtive, as if the watch and ward society had a tail on me. Going up in the elevator, I tried to look like an executive going to a sales conference. Back in my room I set up the projector on the luggage rack, pulled the drapes, shut off the lights, and sat on one of the beds to watch the movie. Wasteful practice giving me a room with two beds.
    Motels did that to me often. Alone in a two-bed room. A great song title, maybe I’d get me a funny suit and a guitar and record it. The projector whirred. The movie showed up on the bare wall.
    Patricia Utley was right, it was a high-class operation.
    The color was good, even on the beige wall. I hadn’t bothered with sound. The titles were professional, and the set was well lit and realistic-looking. The plot, as I got it without the sound, was about a housewife, frustrated by her church, children, and kitchen existence, who relieves