Stardust by Joseph Kanon Read Free Book Online

minutes.
    “It wasn’t your trouble,” he said finally. “I figured you had enough of your own.”
    “A shame,” Lasner said, shaking his head. “I never heard he was a drinker. They must have had some party. Him and the skirt. It’s a hell of a thing. He gonna be all right?”
    So now he drank, the rumor swelling, branching. A drunken party, something Lasner could understand. Where did the woman come from? His own invention, an inside tip from Katz? But before Ben could say anything else, Paulette Goddard got off the train with a group of porters and a cartload of suitcases. Her hair was brushed out, shiny, every inch of her in place.
    “She doesn’t trust me to find my own car,” he said as she came up, putting her hand on his arm.
    “I’m just cadging a lift,” she said.
    The lift, or at least its colored driver, was moving toward them on the platform, behind a blonde in a wide-shouldered dress and spectator pumps, still trim but thickening a little now.
    “Paulette,” she said with a quick hug, then turned to Lasner and put her arms around his neck and held him, not caring who saw. “Dr. Rosen’s in the car,” she said, nodding toward a black Chrysler waiting at the curb.
    “I feel fine.”
    “Big shot,” she said fondly. “Just get in the car. Stanley’s sniffing around somewhere. Florabel Muir’s old leg man—he’s working for Polly now. You want to talk to him or to Rosen?”
    “That’s the choice?”
    “Oh god,” Paulette said, “not Stanley. He’s been after me since Charlie. Fay—”
    “I know, I know. Henry, get her to the car, will you?” She turned to Lasner. “You send a telegram from Kansas City and now you don’t even want to see him?”
    “He sent it,” Lasner said, pointing at Ben.
    Fay looked up, puzzled, then went back to Lasner. “I was worried sick.”
    “I just hired him. We met in Germany.”
    This seemed to make even less sense, but she smiled up blankly, polite, the boss’s wife.
    Lasner held his eye for a minute, what Ben took as a last silent exchange about the train, then moved on.
    “Call Bunny Jenkins at the studio,” he said to Ben. “He’ll fix everything for you. And order the stock now—they say tomorrow, it’s always next month. Check the list at Roach, see if they’ve still got a cutter, Hal Jasper.”
    “The VD guy?”
    Lasner smiled. “Yeah. Tell him I bet they were his crabs.”
    “Sol, I mean it, no more business. I’ll walk right out of here. I’ve been worried sick . This is the second time—”
    “Tell the world.”
    She bit her lip, then sighed and fixed him with an or-else stare. “This isn’t a house call. I had to get him out of bed to come here. Now are you coming or what?”
    He shrugged, beginning to move off, then paused and looked back to Ben. “If you need a few days, that’s okay. You know, to visit at the hospital.”
    A T FIRST , scanning the crowd, all he saw were the dark glasses and thick blond hair, pinned up in a pile on her head. Then she came toward him, a smooth stride, and he recognized the woman in her photograph, the same long face as her father, the high forehead. What it hadn’t shown was the skin, a tawny cream that held the sun in it. She was in a white short-sleeved blouse, slacks, and canvas shoes, as if she’d just stepped off a tennis court.
    “Liesl?” he said, peering at her.
    “Yes,” she said, extending her hand. Then, “Excuse me,” taking off her sunglasses, “so rude. Sometimes I forget. So we meet.”
    “How is he?”
    “The same.”
    “What do the doctors say?”
    “He’s not responding. It’s a long time now. We’re just waiting. You understand, there’s no recovery. I don’t want you to expect—”
    Her eyes, uncovered now, darted sharply, flecked with light. She seemed to be wearing no makeup at all, lips bare, not even a hint of Paulette Goddard’s glossy red, just the flush of anger or worry that made her movements jerky—handshake to questioning glance, all