“Is that proverb straight, Lovejoy?”
“Certainly!” Now even Bill was sceptical. I hate mistrust in other people. We started to clear up.
“Do a deal, Bill?” The deck arena was clear of guests. Gina Aquilina drifted through—changed again, exquisitely sheathed in a risky purple, silver chain accessories—with Orly prattling amusing prattle. He’d changed too, a smoothie’s white tuxedo. I waited until they’d strolled inside.
“Could I afford it?”
Witticisms gall me, when they’re at my expense. “Watch your back, that’s all.” Zole’s words.
“My back?” He laughed, but eyes alert and wary.
“Gina asked about you. I said you were a great barman.” I glanced over his shoulder at the shore, made sure he knew where I was looking. “I could have dropped you in the clag, Bill. That means you owe me.”
“How much, Lovejoy?”
“The ten dollars Tony owed. I could have said you were hopeless, got you the sack.”
“I didn’t figure you for a mercenary, Lovejoy.” He brought out a ten-dollar bill, placed it on the serving basin. He was puzzled now, and even warier.
“I’m working my passage up, up and away. I need every groat I can get. Thanks.” I slid the ten dollars back to him, finished wiping the glasses. The bar might be wired for sound, vision, heaven knows what. Just like the party area, or the rails where I’d attended to Sophie Brandau.
Bill looked at the money. He finally recovered it, said nothing more, except gave a curt nod of recognition. We wound up the bar.
“Reckon Kelly Palumba’s recovered?”
“No names, Lovejoy. House rules.”
“Right. Only, it’s been about an hour since she went moribund.” I drew breath. Come darkness, I’d be over the side and swimming for it, or being smuggled away in some kind lady’s purse. Sophie Brandau was that lady. “Bill. What would you call a really convincing drink, for a lady?”
CABIN 020 was midships, port side. That meant its portholes faced the open sound. Light was dwindling now, sailing boats and small craft setting sailing lights shimmering the darkening waters. The
Mrs. Brandau’s welcome wasn’t much. “Come in, Lovejoy. Sit.”
Hell, like a dog. Reluctantly I deposited the tray, an old Burmese original lacquer. Criminal lo use it. I’d only chosen it to prevent Bill from scouring it to extinction. It was one hundred and fifty years old, living on borrowed time in this company of millionaire scatter-brains.
The cabin was a shipboard compact, folding tables and furniture screwed down and all that. It was highly feminine, three mirrors, of which one was a true Regency that caught my breath. I sat on a low settee, modern crud, and tried to think polite thoughts about the lovely woman opposite.
Worry shreds a woman’s confidence, doesn’t it. It takes the steam out of the face somehow, shows in the eyes. This lady was never going to bat for America, not the way she’d crumpled inwardly.
“Something I said, love?” I asked.
“You were kind, Lovejoy. I need somebody kind.”
This sort of talk dismays me. We’re vulnerable enough without trust raising its fearful head.
“Look, lady. I’m knee-deep in muck and bullets. I’ve hardly a bean. All I really know, between ourselves, is antiques and nothing but antiques. I’m also…” How to phrase it so I sounded superb? “Don’t trust me, is all I’m saying.”
“Sophie,” she said listlessly. Women take no notice. You might as well talk to the wall. “It’s my husband, Lovejoy.”
Oh, hell. I half rose. She gestured me down.
“How can I stop him?” She noticed my face, which must have debeamed somewhere along the line. “You’re the one doing the Sherlock with Moira Hawkins. Denzie’s crazy. It’s not the first time he’s been stupid. She’s dragging him in. We’re in over our heads. She’s persuaded him it’ll bring fame, a fortune. The biggest PR fillip ever. Even push him to the presidency. He’s like a man demented. And she’s playing on it.”
That was it. Expectancy lifted her eyebrows. “Well, Lovejoy?”
Clearly this was no seduction scene between randy serf and lusting contessa. Disappointed, I revealed how I’d encountered the Hawkinses. “All I know is that Moira’s sister Rose frequents the bar where I work…”
Sophie heard me out. She lit a cigarette, clicking the lighter a few times. “I’d hoped you would be more cooperative. If it’s a deal you want…”
I’d nothing to deal with. Yet here was a millionaire’s wife offering… Suddenly I wanted to know more, more about Moira Hawkins’s project, why Sophie was so concerned. I mean, I’d seen the Hawkins place. It was mundane, cheap even. This lady’s emerald solitaire could buy Rose, Moira, bookshop and all. I’d been ordered to play along with this delectable bird, so I’d be in the clear with Gina even if I said, “Okay, love. I’ll do what you want.”
Her face lit, losing that waxy cast and hueing into animation. “You will? Truly, Lovejoy?”
She came to fold herself beside me. “You know the risks?”
“You’re worth it,” I lied, hoping Gina’s recorded tapes of this conversation would exonerate me one hundred per cent.
Her eyes fluttered, lowered. “Don’t be under any illusion, Lovejoy. There’s a limit to what I can do.”
