Taming a Sea Horse by Robert B. Parker Read Free Book Online

romantic-which is probably two ways of saying the same thing. You think love is something. A thing. A force in human affairs. It is not a force in whore-pimp affairs. It's just another word for fucking."
    "So why does April think she's in love?" I said.
    "I don't know. I don't even care. I'm sick of the word. Isn't your girlfriend a shrink? Ask her."
    The croissants were gone. So was the coffee. I sat quietly for a while.
    "I can tell April what I know about Rambeaux," I said. "But…"
    "She knows it already," Patricia said.
    "Yes."
    "It's all you can do," she said.
    "Yeah."
    She stood and put out her hand. "It was good to see you again."
    I took her hand. "You too," I said.
    We walked to the door. She opened it. "I'll pay you for your time," she said.
    "Better than paying me for results," I said.

10
    April wasn't around. I tried Tiger Lilies Escort Service and they said she was not there. I asked where she was and they said they were sorry but they were not able to give me that information. I said I wanted to speak with the manager and they hung up. I looked her up in the Manhattan directory. There were twenty-seven Kyles but none named April. Perhaps Robert could help me locate her.
    I cabbed up to 77th Street and rang his bell at three-thirty. It was after lunchtime and he was probably still in bed. I rang again and heard a voice badly muffled on the intercom. I said, "It's me," into the speaker. In a moment the door buzzed open. I knew he didn't know who "It's me" was any more than I'd recognize his voice. The sound was so distorted that you might be able to distinguish species and gender but no more than that.
    I took the elevator to the fifth floor and looked at myself in the mirrored wall of the elevator till we got there. The hall was short. There were maybe four apartments to the floor. Opposite the elevator door was a stairwell, rimmed with a dark oaken railing. Rambeaux's apartment was to the left, in the front of the building. I knocked. I could hear a small rustle behind the door. And the peephole darkened. Then silence. I knocked again. No, answer. I knocked again. The door opened a crack, held narrow by a chain.
    "What the fuck you want?" Rambeaux said. I could see just the strip of him that showed through the narrow door.
    "Ah, you syrup-tongued dandy," I said. "No wonder you're hell with the ladies."
    "Whyn't you get fucking lost, huh?"
    "I'm looking for April. She's not at Tiger Lilies and they won't say where she is."
    "She's not here. I don't know where she is. Maybe out with a john."
    "No," I said, "the way they said it was that she wasn't there. Like she wouldn't be there later, either."
    "Maybe she don't want to see you."
    "How cruel," I said, "but even if it were true, they didn't know who I was. I could have been a customer." I had leaned my shoulder against the door as I talked. I was wearing the gray Nikes with a charcoal swoosh, and putting my foot in the door didn't seem like the best way to deal with it. It was Nikes' only flaw.
    Rambeaux pushed back. "I don't know where she is and I don't want to," he said. "I got nothing to do with her anymore."
    "What about tuition?" I said.
    "Just get the fuck away from me, man." Rambeaux was pushing harder. "I got a gun." He shifted behind the door and I saw the other side of his face through the opening. His left eye was closed and his cheek was swollen and discolored.
    "Somebody beat you up?" I said.
    "Nobody done shit," he said. "Please, man. Get the fuck away from me."
    I relaxed my lean on the door for a minute and he closed the opening again. Then I pressed my right foot flat against the wall behind me and lunged the door inward. The chain pulled out of the doorjamb, screws and all, and the door flew open. Rambeaux bounced back against the wall, on the other side of the door, and I was in. I pulled the door away from him and closed it. Rambeaux did in fact have a gun. A squat blue shortbarreled S&W .32 that he held in front of him with both hands like