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

succinctly, unsure whether rumors about the six Doe bodies had ever penetrated as high in homosexual strata as this one, since neither he nor his team had ever approached Rha and Rufus, but all worlds gossip. “I’m going to have at least two likenesses of the later Does shortly, and I’m here to ask if you’d mind looking at them,” Abe concluded. “One thing has emerged—that the Does were what my niece calls drop-dead gorgeous. Expert opinion says they weren’t—er—gay, but they were all around twenty years of age, and likely to be seeking careers on the stage, or in film, or maybe in fashion. Mrs. Gloria Silvestri said I should talk to you.”
    Rha’s face lit up. “Isn’t she something? She makes all her own clothes, you know, so I take her around the fabric houses. Unerring taste!”
    “Let the man state his business, Rha,” said Rufus softly, and took over. “I know what she was thinking. We always have scads of young things passing through and learning the trade. At seventy miles from New York City, Holloman is an ideal jumping-off place before hitting the urban nightmare. Girls and boys both, we see them. They stay anything from a week to a year with us, and I’m glad you found us first rather than last. We might be able to help, but even if it turns out we can’t, we can keep our ears and eyes open.”
    Down went his empty coffee cup; Abe stood. “May I come back with my sketches when our police artist has finished?”
    “Of course,” said Rha warmly.
    On his way to the front door, Abe had a thought. “Uh—is Peter the lighting blighter okay?”
    “Oh, sure,” said Rufus, he seemed taken aback that anyone should remember a lighting blighter. “He’s sucking a stiff Scotch.”
    “Did you add the theater onto the house?”
    “We didn’t need to.” Rufus opened the front door. “There was a ballroom out the back nearly as big as the Waldorf—I ask you, a ballroom? Debutantes running amok in Busquash.”
    “I daresay they did back in the late 1800s and early 1900s,” said Abe, grinning, “but I can see why you gentlemen would find a theater stage far handier. Thanks for the time and the coffee.”
    From a window the two partners in design watched Abe’s slight figure walk to a respectable-looking police unmarked.
    “He’s very, very smart,” said Rufus.
    “Definitely smart enough to tell a sequin from a spangle. I suggest, Rufus my love, that we be tremendously co-operative and astronomically helpful.”
    “What worries me is that we won’t know anything!” Rufus said with a snap. “Gays aren’t the flavor of the month.”
    “Or the year. Never mind, we can but try.” Came one of those explosive sighs; Rha’s voice turned weary again. “In the meantime, Rufus, we have a pool of sicked-up grape juice to deal with.” He stopped dead, looking thunderstruck. “ Gold! ” he roared. “Gold, gold, gold! When the richest king in the world is blue from unrequited love, he does a Scrooge McDuck and rolls in gold, gold, gold!”
    “Open treasure chests everywhere!”
    “A waterfall of gold tinsel!”
    “He’ll have to roll on a monstrous bean-bag of gold coins, that won’t be easy to make look convincing—”
    “No, not a bean-bag! The pool of gold dust at the bottom of the tinsel waterfall, numb-nuts! He bathes in his sorrow!”
    Rufus giggled. “He’ll have to wear a body suit, otherwise the tinsel will creep into every orifice.”
    Rha bellowed with laughter. “So what’s new about that for Roger Dartmont? Shitting gold is one up on shitting ice-cream.”
    Still chuckling at their shared visions of Broadway’s ageing star, the immortal Roger Dartmont, Rha Tanais and Rufus Ingham went back to work, imbued with fresh enthusiasm.
    Abe went straight to see Hank Jones as soon as he returned from his interview with the design duo.
    “How’s it going, Hank?”
    The pencil kept moving. “A proposition, sir?”
    “Hit me.”
    The pencil went down. Hank flipped his