The Laughter of Dead Kings by Elizabeth Peters Read Free Book Online Page B

from anybody, especially Schmidt. When I did so, I found not one but three text messages from him.Schmidt adores texting. He adores every new gadget until the next one comes along.
    “Clara bit Suzi,” I reported.
    “Good for Clara.”
    “The damn woman has the run of my house. What do you suppose she—”
    “Suzi is an unknown quantity and the least of our worries at the moment. She can’t have any knowledge of—shall we refer to it henceforth as Feisal’s loss?”
    “She’d taken up with Schmidt before it happened,” I conceded.
    “Anything else?”
    “Just the usual. Oh, there’s the waiter. Good. I’m—”
    “Starved. I know.” John went to the door and opened it. The hallway outside was discreetly dim, but I made out a cheering sight—a cart loaded with serving dishes. The waiter was an undersized youth possessed of an oversized mustache; grunting with effort, he propelled the cart forward.
    John let him get all the way into the room before he moved. The boy let out a shriek as his arm was yanked back and up. The gun he had been holding hit the floor with a thud.

T HREE
    D on’t just sit there, do something,” John gasped. His prisoner was squirming and writhing and directing ineffectual blows at John’s midriff.
    “Hit him,” I suggested.
    “That would be unkind and unnecessary,” said a fourth party.
    He stood in the doorway, pretty nearly filling it. His mustache was even larger than the boy’s. His gun was bigger too.
    “Idiota,” he remarked, addressing the boy.
    “Scusi, Papa,” said the boy. He kept swinging at John, who had shifted his grip and was holding the kid out at arm’s length. The mustache hung by a thread, or rather, a hair, and the face now visible to my wondering eyes was spotted with pimples.
    “Let him go, you big bully,” I said.
    “Damn it,” said John.
    “Let us compose ourselves,” said the newcomer, in a fruity baritone. “Sir John, I beg you will release my incompetent offspring.Giuseppe, sit down and behave yourself. Signorina, my compliments.”
    John dropped Giuseppe and gestured pointedly at the gun the big man held. “The atmosphere of cordiality would be improved if you would put that away, Bernardo, old chap.”
    “Certainly. It was only meant to get your attention.”
    “It did that,” I said, watching Bernardo stow the gun away in one pocket. He scooped up the weapon his son had dropped, and shoved it into another pocket. They did not improve the hang of his coat.
    Bernardo chuckled. “You haven’t taken to carrying a weapon, have you?” he inquired of John.
    John took his empty hands out of his own pockets. “How much did you pay Enrico?” he asked.
    “You do him a grave injustice. It was not necessary for me to bribe him. Your arrival was noted and reported. Signorina.” He bowed gracefully. “May I offer you a glass of wine?”
    “Only if you’re paying for it.”
    This sally produced a shout of laughter. “Ah, she is witty as well as beautiful! I get it, as you say in America! Then may I beg that you will offer me a glass?”
    I was beginning to like Bernardo. He was about John’s height, and about twice his breadth, especially through the chest and shoulders. He had an outdoorsman’s finely lined skin, eyebrows almost as oversized as his mustache, and a head of black hair so impeccably smooth it looked like a designer toupee. He bared a set of expensively capped teeth, and took a chair opposite me.
    At his father’s request, Giuseppe produced another glass and we all settled down round the table. Giuseppe kept rubbing his wrist and shooting malevolent glances at John.
    “None for him,” said Bernardo, indicating his son. “He does not deserve any. How true it is, your English saying, that one shouldnever send a boy to do the work of a man. The mustache, as I tried to tell him, was a mistake.”
    “Why did you send him, then?” I asked curiously.
    “He must learn sometime. To your health, signorina. And to yours, my