Читать книгу Murder Doesn't Figure - Fred Yorg - Страница 16

CHAPTER TEN

I was still in a state of shock as I walked through the doorway of the mansion. My mind was overwhelmed with thoughts of Von Klamer and the most surreal meeting of my life. As I walking over to the car, I noticed that the gray truck was still in the parking lot. I took a quick look around, but the gardener didn’t seem to be lurking about. In fact, he was nowhere to be seen, I assumed he was probably working in the back yard or over on the other side of the house. I turned around and stole one last look at Von Klamer’s place. After being inside, she now made more sense to me. My first impression about her being designed by a deranged architect was way off base. The old house, had won me over, she would fit in nicely, over in Rumson, with the rest of the mansions.

As I slid behind the wheel of the Triumph, I was feeling pretty good about the meeting and the nature of the assignment. In fact the entire day was actually going pretty good. As a financial man I usually looked at my day in financial terms, debits and credits, pluses and minuses. On the minus side, the cat had rudely awakened me earlier this morning. I was harshly insulted, by the waddler. I spilled hot coffee on myself; met with Pamela and saw her in a most unflattering light, and then I had a meeting with an old Nazi war criminal. But then again, on the plus side I did have the final word with the waddler, I finally got a chance to pay back Louie Louie, and last but certainly not least, the old Nazi war criminal gave me a check for twenty five thousand dollars.

All in all it had been a pretty good day. So good in fact that I’d actually forgotten two other pluses for the day. Dave returned the Triumph and she was back in great shape and I’d also gotten my tapes in the mail. While the tapes were foremost on my mind I thought I’d unwrap them and put one of them in. Although I was a big fan of Stevie Ray Vaughn, I didn’t want to fall into a routine like the cat. I needed a little variety in my life, so I pulled out the Warren Zevon tape and slid it in the tape player. The first song on the track was Warren’s version of “Bad Karma”.

Another omen, first the black cat named Trouble, then Stevie Ray’s CD Double Trouble and now “Bad Karma,” it was times like this that I was glad I wasn’t superstitious.

I pulled out of Von Klamer’s driveway and back onto Serpentine Drive. Since the Triumph and I had bested the snake-like road once today, I gave the car a little extra gas as we passed by the iron gates of the estate. It was a beautiful day and I felt like I was bullet proof, on a roll.

I was getting into the music when I hit my first hard turn. The Triumph hugged the corner and we sped down the hill. The next corner was a little sharper and I wasn’t up for testing the car or myself for that matter. I applied the brakes to slow down. No sense pushing one’s Karma especially when you’ve got a twenty five grand check in your pocket. Much to my horror, the brake petal went to the floor and I wasn’t slowing down. My body and brain went into automatic pilot and out of pure reflex I pumped the brakes, downshifted the car from third to second, and pulled up on the emergency brake. Amazingly I did it all without ever consciously thinking about it, in little more than a blink of the eye. Unfortunately nothing was working. I was totally out of control. I had two choices at the next curve, either try to make a hard left and go back up the hill or try and make the hard right and go down the hill. Neither choice was very appealing. My subconscious with little formal debate from the conscious side of the brain, chose to go right.

They say when you are about to meet death, your whole life flashes by you in an instant.

Interestingly my mind was only thinking about Tuxedo. I wondered if he’d miss me. Then the car skidded off the road. Dust and gravel were flying everywhere. The Triumph, for her part, tried valiantly to navigate the turn, but at this speed she couldn’t manage it. The squeal of the tires were deafening, and then the music died and I slipped into a black hole of unconsciousness.