Too Sweet to Die by Ron Goulart, Llc Ebook Architects Read Free Book Online

kitchen.
    One opened carton was brimful of glossy photos of a nude girl in bed with a horse. Easy asked, “Jill was here?”
    Mitzi adjusted a copper wrist bracelet, then opened a dented blue refrigerator. “Yes, she was.”
    The kitchen table was strewn with cut-up Victorian prints of match girls, wild flowers, obscure animals. An open pair of scissors and a pot of paste sat on a breakfast plate next to the remnants of Canadian bacon and eggs.
    Stepping around the table, Easy said, “You didn’t admit that before, Mitzi. Not to me, not to Jill’s agent. Why?”
    Mitzi located a frying pan under one of the kitchen chairs. “I’m not the best housekeeper in the world.”
    Easy moved to her, took hold of one chubby arm. “You’ve got enough stuff in here to distract you all day,” he said. “Stop sidetracking and tell me.”
    “I thought I was helping her.” Mitzi twisted free and slammed the pan on a sooty stove burner.
    “Helping her how?”
    “I figured she has a good reason for dropping out of sight.” Mitzi poured cloudy peanut oil in the skillet.
    “What would a good reason be?”
    “Some guy probably,” said Mitzi.
    “Do you know who?”
    “No.”
    Easy leaned against the blue refrigerator, arms folded, watching the chubby girl. “Why’d you tell me she was in Carmel?”
    Mitzi concentrated on slicing the frozen blintz package open with a rusty butcher knife. “I ought to wear glasses,” she said, squinting. “I was only trying to stall you.”
    “Then Jill didn’t really phone you from there?”
    “Have you checked in Carmel already? I suppose you have, if you’re here.”
    “Yes,” said Easy. “Nobody admits seeing her.”
    “You talked to her father?”
    “I saw his private secretary. Old Nordlin is supposed to be too sick to talk to the outside world.”
    Oil sputtered up at Mitzi when she dropped the blintzes into the pan. “Shit, if you’ll pardon the expression,” she said, wiping at her cheek. She exhaled, turned to squint at Easy. “I really don’t know where she is. I haven’t seen her since Saturday night. Covering for her is an old habit, a hard one to break. That’s the only reason I lied to you.”
    Arms still folded, Easy said, “You were hoping she was in Carmel, though, weren’t you?”
    Mitzi shook her head, her long straight hair flickering. “No. I made up Carmel. Because of her father and all. I’m not shitting you, if you’ll pardon the expression.”
    “What about Saturday night?”
    “Where’s my mother humping, if you’ll forgive the expression, spatula?” Mitzi shook a silverware drawer, jabbing chubby fingers into it. “You ought to go talk to Dean.”
    “Dean who?”
    “Dean Constance. Maybe his fame hasn’t reached your part of Los Angeles yet. He’s one of our leading dirty movie makers. He’s richer than shit, if you’ll pardon the expression.” She located a bent-handled spatula and turned the sizzling blintzes. “Dean lives in an enormous mother of a place over in Ross. You know where Ross is? You go across the Golden Gate Bridge and instead of turning off to Sausalito you keep on straight for a while. A very rich town.”
    “Is that where you and Jill were Saturday night?”
    “Dean has a continuous party going,” said the chubby girl. “Jill and I looked in Saturday.”
    “Who’d she leave with?”
    “It’s who I left with that pertains,” said Mitzi. “Can you believe at a party with over a hundred freaky people in attendance I end up with a nice young clean-cut Jewish lawyer. I did and left with him. I never saw Jill after that.” She sniffed, noticed smoke spinning up from the skillet and jerked it up off the burner. “Julia Child I’m not.”
    Easy unfolded his arms, flexed his wrists and his knuckles made a crackling sound. “You’re still not telling me everything.”
    “Yes, I am,” insisted the chubby girl. “I really am.”
    “You’re worried about something.”
    “No, I’m not.”
    Easy asked,