Sins of the Flesh by Colleen McCullough Read Free Book Online Page A

barbarians to find that the Volga was called the Rha, and the Don was called the Tanais. Rha Tanais—perfect! And that really is how I found my new name,” said Rha Tanais.
    “You’d have to be a professor of classics to guess, sir.”
    “Yes, it’s a mystery to the world,” Rha Tanais agreed.
    Abe glanced across to where Mr. Willowy was concluding his ministrations to Peter the lighting blighter, and looking as if he was about to join them. This remorseless glare gave the lie to Abe’s impression of youth; Mr. Willowy was an extremely well preserved fortyish. At six feet he seemed short only when he stood next to Rha Tanais, but no other word than “willowy” could describe his body or the way he moved it. Coppery red hair, swamp-colored eyes, and wearing discreet but effective eye makeup. Beautiful hands that he used like a ballet dancer. Such he had probably been.
    “Come and meet Lieutenant Abe Goldberg!” Tanais hollered, muting his tones as Mr. Willowy arrived. “Lieutenant, this is my irreplaceable other half, Rufus Ingham.” Suddenly he burst into bass-baritone song, with Rufus Ingham singing a pure descant.
    “We’ve been together now for forty years, and it don’t seem a daaay too long!”
    A bewildered Abe laughed dutifully.
    “Rufus didn’t come into the world so euphoniously named either,” Tanais said, “but his real name is a secret.”
    Rufus cut him short, not angrily, but quite firmly—which one was the boss? “No, Rha, we’re not talking to Walter Winchell, we’re talking to a police lieutenant. Honestly! My name was Antonio Carantonio.”
    “Why try to hide that, Mr. Tanais?”
    “Rha, my name is Rha! You mean you don’t know?”
    “Know what?”
    “This is The House! Carantonio is The Name! Abe—I may call you Abe?—the story has passed into Busquash mythology by now, they even tell it on the tour buses. I’m sure the Holloman police department must have files in the plural on it. In 1925, before Rufus and I were ever thought of, the owner of this house and a two million dollar fortune vanished from the face of the earth,” said Rha Tanais in creepy tones. “After seven years she was declared dead, and Rufus’s mother inherited. The original owner was Dr. Nell Carantonio, and Rufus’s mother was yet another Nell Carantonio.”
    “I’m Carantonio because I’m illegitimate,” Rufus interjected. “I have no idea who my father is—my mother put him down on my birth certificate as first name, Un, and second name, Known.”
    Rha took up the narrative. “Fenella—Rufus’s mother—died in 1950, but unlike the original Nell, she did leave a will. Antonio Carantonio IV—Rufus—got the lot.” He heaved one of his sighs, both hands flying into the air. “Can you imagine it, Abe? There we were, a couple of sweet young things, with a positive barn of a house and carloads of money! Fenella had quintupled the first Nell’s fortune and kept the house in repair. Our heads had always been stuffed with dreams and we’d made good beginnings, but suddenly we had the capital and the premises to do whatever we wanted.”
    “And what did you want?” Abe asked.
    “To design. Glamorous clothes for so-called unattractive women, first. Then bridal gowns. After that came stage costumes, and finally production design. Wonderful!” Rha caroled.
    “Wonderful,” Rufus echoed on a sigh.
    “Let’s get out of here and have an espresso,” said Rha.
    Shortly thereafter Abe found himself drinking superb coffee in a small room off the restaurant-sized kitchen; its chairs were upholstered in fake leopard skin and were replete with gilded carvings, the drapes were black-and-gold-striped brocade, and the floor was a black-spotted fawn marble. All it needs, thought Abe, is Mae West.
    “The nice thing about Fenella—Nell the second—is that she approved of gays,” said Rufus. “She was a good mother.”
    “Stop chattering, Rufus! Let the man state his business.”
    Abe did so