Muller, Marcia, [McCone 01] Edwin of the Iron Shoes(v1, shtml) Read Free Book Online Page A

nodded happily and lurched into a shabby overstuffed chair. The little room was scantily furnished: it contained a small love seat, formica coffee table, battered bureau, and thin mattress on an iron bedstand. A couple of sets of fatigues and Charlie's old sheepskin jacket hung from pegs on the far waJl. A second lamp, a cracked china base festooned with yellow roses, gave feeble light to the coffee table. The poverty of Charlie's life threatened to overwhelm me as I sat down on the lumpy love seat and had to move to avoid a protruding spring.
    A cocktail shaker, with a corroding metal top, stood on the table next to several bottles of gin and vermouth. Harmon selected one of the glasses lined up there, inspecting it for cleanliness. It was smudged and clouded, like all the others.
    He glanced at me with a helpless look, poured straight gin into the glass, and handed it to me with a little bow. Evidently Charlie's spree had begun with martinis, but that pretense at amenity had long since been abandoned.
    I smiled ruefully in return and sipped a little of the gin, trying not to gag. Harmon sat down next to me on the love seat. I noticed another glass of the colorless liquid on the floor near his feet.
    Harmon turned to me with a questioning look. "Are you investigating Joan's…?"
    Querulous words from Charlie interrupted him. "You did love her, didn't you, Ben, old Ben?"
    "Everybody loved Joan," Harmon said evenly. "She and I were very good friends."
    "You wouldn't of been if I'd been watching like I should of." Charlie was beginning to slur his words. "If I'd of been able to help her when the kid got picked up by the cops. She comes to me, says 'Charlie, what am I going to do?' But what was I supposedta say? I didn't know what to do either. Hell, I don't mess with drugs. What was I supposedta know?"
    "You did right, Charlie," Harmon said soothingly.
    "Shit! Sure I did. 'Go see Ben Harmon,' I says. 'He gets folks outa jail all the time.' So she did; and next thing you know, old Ben Harmon is around here, stopping in to see Joanie, hanging around her, helping her out when the stupid kid goes and O.D.' s. Good old Ben, moving in on my woman."
    Harmon looked at me and frowned, then said, "Now, you know it wasn't like that, Charlie."
    "Wasn't it? Wasn't it? Then what were you doing there? Why didn't you go home to your wife and kiddy and that palace you're always talking about out in the Sunset? What the hell were you doing with my woman? I should of been the one to comfort her. I always was until you. Wasn't it like that, Mr. High-and-Mighty Harmon?"
    The bail bondsman kept his expression blank. "Charlie, you're going to feel a lot better in the morning. You're going to feel a lot better about everything and then we'll forget you ever said this."
    "Feel better in the morning?" Charlie snorted loudly. "I'm not gonna feel better. I'm gonna feel like hell. I'll have the champion hangover of San Francisco. And it won't make me change my mind about you, old Ben."
    Harmon stood up, tugging at his suit-coat. "I think you'll change your mind, Charlie. I think you will."
    There was an undertone to his words that I couldn't understand. I wondered what the relationship was between the two men, besides their mutual interest in Joan Albritton.
    Harmon straightened the knot of his paisley tie, regarding Charlie through his thick glasses. Now that the light no longer shone directly on them, I could see his eyes were brown but without the soft quality brown eyes usually have.
    "You'll feel better soon," he said softly. He then turned to me and held out his hand again. "Nice meeting you, Miss McCone. Take care of our boy here." I started to get up to let him out, but he added, "No, don't bother. I'll go out the back way. The door self-locks."
    He turned and left the room. Charlie followed him with his eyes, not moving his head.
    "Harmon's a bastard," he muttered, more to himself than to me. "I tried to tell her. I tried."
    I set the glass of gin