The Retrieval by Lucius Parhelion Read Free Book Online Page A

he actively disliked.
    They had driven up during a lull in arrivals. Laura had time to survey the grand staircase that swept up to the front doors with the intense but abstracted gaze of someone getting into character while Charlie gave instructions to one of the young men parking cars about transporting both the wicker basket and Ducky. After suitably bribing the attendant, Charlie also spoke with Ducky before handing over the lead. Then he made a tiny adjustment to his left cuff and looked over at Laura, who met his gaze with an opaquely bright smile. He offered her his arm. It was time to make an entrance.
    A uniformed maid showed them into the huge living room dominated by several couches, a grand piano, and a decent Persian carpet on the floor. A well-worn tapestry of hunting courtiers hung over the mantelpiece, filling the space between the windows on one of the flanking walls and the landing across the other. Aside from that obvious antique, there was a lack of imagination to the rest of the French-styled furnishings that suggested a severe pursuit of social respectability. The guests were much brighter and more impressive than the room.
    Their host quickly broke away from a pair of studio executives to approach Laura and exchange sustained and doting hellos with her before offering drinks. Mr. Lowery was a lanky man with an appearance crafted largely from u-shaped curves. He had an air of edgy pep about him and was the sort of fellow who always seemed to be sitting at the head of the table no matter where his chair was located. Charlie would wager Lowery’s bite was worse than his bark.
    However, Lowery’s wife was a subtler challenge. During the drive, Laura had warned Charlie that their hostess was one of the first stars of the silent screen still playing her greatest role. Mrs. Lowery, in her late thirties, had kept dark looks dazzling enough to easily attract a society court in any other small city. In Beverly Hills, she might dominate her surroundings, but competition made her position more laborious than effortless. The local gluts on the charisma and beauty markets ruthlessly reduced their usual value, especially for older women.
    Mrs. Lowery had mastered the fine points of her role. Her greetings to Laura and Charlie were appropriately, warmly aristocratic, and she put on a good show of having read Charlie’s books. She could also rise to meet a true challenge. When Jake and his date came in about a quarter hour after Laura’s arrival, Mrs. Lowery’s greetings to Miss Cooper was regally friendly, an impeccable job of acting. However, the way she welcomed Jake made Charlie narrow his eyes. There was something subtly possessive about the quality of her attentions that was alarming.
    A few minutes later, Charlie grabbed a rare chance to get Laura all to himself. He steered her over to where French doors stood open in the high wall otherwise dominated by windows. A cool evening would provide both the excuse for their huddle and an approximation of privacy; the air felt pleasant to a recently arrived New Yorker but was almost chill to anyone whose blood had been thinned by Los Angeles winters.
    Charlie murmured, with a smile he hoped didn’t seem as fake as it felt, “I thought Jake was only being dramatic when he complained about our hostess.”
    “Just because Jake’s dramatic doesn’t mean he’s dim,” Laura replied as she unnecessarily rearranged Charlie’s boutonnière, her own bright smile never wavering. “But he also couldn’t hide how his sympathy for Mrs. Lowery made him like her. At least, he liked her before she spooked him. Although his wariness came too late. Don’t worry; I’m dealing with the matter.”
    Charlie regarded her with wariness of his own. “You’re not carrying a rusty tuning fork with you this evening, are you?”
    “Darling, don’t be cryptic. Someone around here will read it as cleverness at his expense, and you’ll end up writing second-feature scripts about