and he gets to telling me about a business of his called Possibilities, Inc. And how it was too bad my husband wasn’t around to get in on the ground floor with him again.”
“
“Yes,
“Understandable,” I granted.
“Then seeing him
She gestured with the yellowed packet that she had been holding onto like the railing at a sharp drop- off.
“So I dug them up again,” she said, “from my old box of souvenirs from back when we were rich and infamous.”
Bunny tossed the moldy sheaf my way, and I picked it up, wondering what answers it might hold.
“They may not make much sense to you,” Bunny said. “That old fox I was married to wasn’t much for making notes that the income tax people might follow. But you’ll see that he invested ten thousand in a gimmick Parvain invented that was supposed to detect uranium ore from an airplane, instead of working at ground level.”
“When was this?”
“Oh, back in those days of all the big strikes in Canada. Up north, everybody and his brother was inventing these gizmos that claimed to sniff out the stuff.”
“What are we talking about here,” I asked, “glorified Geiger counters?”
She nodded and tendrils blonde and purple bounced. “Exactly right—least as far as I understand it. Nothing ever came of Parvain’s deal, or I would have heard about it. My dear departed reprobate husband liked to brag about his scores, but if something didn’t pan out, it became a dead issue.”
I leafed through the pages, which dated to the mid-1950s, and found the phrase “Possibilities, Inc.” twice, among a couple of rows of abstract figuring, and a half-paragraph in an almost illegible scrawl. A heavy check mark went through the whole page, like a memorandum to forget it. “Bunny, you said Best mentioned that it was too bad your husband wasn’t in with him
She shrugged grandly. “If they did, why didn’t Best have a pot to piss in? Unless him living like an old fart on a fixed income was just a front.”
“Maybe he was hanging around your club because he eventually planned to hit you up for a touch—to refinance a business your husband had been part of.”
Bunny shook her head thoughtfully. “No, the conversation in question goes back a good couple of years, and Best never mentioned the subject again.”
Something wasn’t adding up.
I asked, “Where the hell did Best get the kind of money it takes to hang out at the Mandor Club? And how did a nebbish like that even gain entry?”
That stopped her. “Be damned if I know. Somebody on our approved list must have brought him in as an invited guest.”
“Is that something you can track?”
“Probably not. Why?”
“Because he was murdered. And anything to do with nuclear physics can be important enough to get somebody killed. It’s the only damn lead we have.”
Bunny gave me a funny look then, then shook her head.
I said, “What is it?”
“Oh, just something Best said to me, not too long ago. Couldn’t be anything important.”
“Damn it, who the hell knows
“Well,” she said, and paused, thinking back, “I had a birthday party a few weeks ago. Best wasn’t here for it, but he called to wish me happy returns. He sounded half in the bag, and I was a little potted myself, so...”
“So?”
“So he said he was sorry he didn’t have a present for me, but he’d stop by with something when he got a chance. And then what he said after that was weird....”
“Weird how?”
“Weird and then some—Morg, he said that if anything happened to keep him from visiting the Mandor Club again, I should expect to receive a late birthday present.”
I frowned. “Has anything shown up? In the mail, or from a shipping firm?”
She shook her head. “Nothing.”
“Well, keep a goddamn sharp eye out. Do you think Best thought his life was in danger?”
Her shrug was almost comically exaggerated. “I don’t know. Like I said, he sounded drunk. And I
“Perhaps,” Gaita said from her seat on the sidelines, where she’d been quietly taking it all in, “Tango might know something of this.”
“Tango, kitten? Who’s that?”
But it was Bunny who answered. “Just one of the girls, Morg. Real name’s Theresa Prosser. Gaita’s right— this Best character, or Parvain or whoever he was, was pretty smitten with Tango. Even took her out to supper a few times.”
“Is she here now?”
“No! Look, Morgan, the last thing we need to do is get anybody
“Let me worry about that. Tell me about Tango. How special was she to Best?”
Bunny was rolling her eyes. “Christ, Morg, don’t make more out of it than what I’ve already told you! Best just seemed to prefer Tango’s company, if she was available.”
“Meaning, Best might have told her something that he didn’t tell you or any of the other girls.”
Bunny seemed openly annoyed now. “This is a business like any other—employees get days off, and this is hers. She’s probably at the Vincalla Motel. Goes there and sits around the pool all day, when she’s not working. At night she reads or watches TV. Quiet girl.”
“Is there a boyfriend in the picture?”
Now Bunny seemed strangely amused. “Gaita, why don’t
Gaita made a resigned gesture with her shoulders. “Tango, she is a lovely woman. One of the loveliest and most in demand here at the Mandor. But she does not like the men.”
“Funny game to go into, then. So, she’s a lesbian?”
“No. She is...how you say...frigid.”
Bunny said, “Tango says the act of sex is no more exciting, or meaningful, to her than brushing her teeth or using the john.”
I frowned. “What, so she puts on an act for her clients?”
“No. She takes great pleasure in having them work hard to please her while she remains bored. It’s her way of feeding her hatred for men.”
“Why is she popular, then?”
Gaita took that one: “Because she is very beautiful,
I asked, “Yet she went out on...what,
“Him she did not mind,” Gaita said. “He was more the father to her. My guess is, they never did the act of sex together.”
Bunny cut in: “To what degree she can put up with men, Tango prefers older ones, like Best. Younger men, closer to her own age, she has a supreme contempt, even hatred, for.”
