Murder in Mount Holly by Paul Theroux Read Free Book Online Page A

although she wore very heavy make-up. Herbie did not expect a woman with a perfectly white face, a little greasy red bow for lips, and hair that was sometimes blue, sometimes as silver as one of Kant-Brake’s fuselages, and always tight with hard little curls, to be a nice lady. But she was kind and tolerant. She said she owed all her tolerance to her membership in the D.A.R.
    Herbie talked to Miss Ball about many things. She knew the movements of any actor, actress, or starlet he could name: who was queer, who was in Italy, who was really seventy and said he was forty-four. And late one evening, when they were talking about marriages, Herbie asked Miss Ball if she had ever been married. Juan was taken for granted. He was just one of the hired help and didn’t count.
    â€œSure,” said Miss Ball, “I’ve been married.”
    â€œNo kidding?”
    â€œWouldn’t think so, would you?”
    â€œWhy not?”
    â€œMaybe I’m not the type.”
    â€œWhat’s the type ?”
    â€œWith a flowered apron, hamburgers sizzling on the griddle, with shiny teeth and bouncy hair. My hair’s all dull and streaky.”
    â€œThat’s the type ?” Herbie thought only of his mother. She hadn’t had any of the things Miss Ball mentioned. All she had, as a married woman, was a scrappy little runt of a husband.
    â€œThat’s what they say.”
    â€œI never heard it.”
    â€œBut,” Miss Ball smiled, “did you put your thinking-cap on?”
    â€œWell, what about him?”
    â€œHim? You mean my hus band?” A laugh did not quite make it out of Miss Ball’s throat, although there were signs of it approaching. It never came.
    â€œYes,” said Herbie. “Your husband. The man you married.”
    â€œWhatever became of him,” sighed Miss Ball. “What shall I say? Shall I say we loved and then were, as they say, estranged? Or shall I tell you he was a big producer who did me dirt? Or shall I tell you he was a poor boy, a very mixed up young man that I found committing highly unnatural acts in the summer house with another twisted little fellow? Shall I tell you he was a bald-faced liar? Yes, that’s what he was, a liar.”
    Miss Ball tried to flutter her hand to her lips. But it was late in the evening and her hand never got beyond her left breast.
    â€œ. . . he did do me wrong. Very, very wrong. But I’m not him, thank God. I am not that man and I don’t have to live with his terrible conscience—I’d hate to be in his shoes right now.”
    â€œWhere is he?”
    â€œHe’s dead.”
    â€œI wouldn’t like to be in his shoes either,” said Herbie.
    â€œThere was a bit of the Irish in him, you know,” said Miss Bail, abandoning the dramatic-hysteric role and lapsing into what she intended to be a brogue. “A bit of the oold sahd . . .” She stopped and then went on. “Full o’ blarney, he was.” Miss Ball just could not get a twinkle out of her heavily made-up eyes. Her eyelids kept sticking. “The sonofabitch.”
    Venom frothed and boiled out of some hidden nodes in Miss Ball’s body, surprising Herbie. Miss Ball cracked all her make-up to flakes in her rage. She was such a nice old lady, Herbie thought. And now Herbie didn’t know her.
    â€œThe no-good sonofabitch. Want to know what he used to do? Hated me so much he used to get up early in the morning, before me. Then he’d sit down—it was four in the morning—and just eat his Jungle Oats as nice as you please. Then coffee. Had to have his coffee. Then, when he finished, he’d take the coffeemaker, the electric coffeemaker, and pull the screws out and screw the top off and wind the friction-tape off the plug I had to fix about ten times because he was too lazy. Then he’d fill the sink with hot soapy water and dunk the coffeemaker into the water and leave it in the