Читать книгу The Bird Boys - Lisa Sandlin - Страница 13

V

HE WAITED WHILE Miss Wade, no, Delpha, de-cyphered the shorthand and typed up the case notes in English complete with a carbon copy, installed them into a manila file folder, labeled the folder ‘Bell,’ and delivered it to his desk. The woman kept to her order of things, and she liked those folders.

She was sort of standing over him now, so Phelan read out, in crisp Courier, their missing person Rodney Bell’s given name, former name and places of residence, age, hobby; and Xavier Bell’s name, his age, former profession and pastime, city, his pouch of tobacco. She didn’t know the name of the rolling papers—hadn’t ever seen such before—but she’d described them: looked like the man was burning hundred dollar bills.

“Hadn’t seen those? Patriotics. Writing on the bills says something like…like…” Phelan grinned. “‘A free country rolling in money is the greatest government.’ If I remember right. Wait, no. Is the highest government. Hippie dippie joke.”

“Have yet to meet a hippie, Mr. Phelan.”

He looked up at her. “Not too late. Plenty still around. Listen, let’s don’t go backward. I’m Tom, and you’re Delpha, and I didn’t say yet—welcome back. I’m glad…I’m…glad.”

Well, that sounded stupid.

“Thank you. I mean it, I do. Been stuck in my room or watching a little TV in the Rosemont lobby. Watergate hearings hitting a lull, I got so bored I helped Oscar in the kitchen couple days. Can that man cook! But it’s funny. In the lobby, Oscar’s pretty regular, but once he crosses the kitchen threshold, he turns into this…Egyptian pharaoh. Says I’ve got a heavy hand on the cinnamon.”

“No such thing as too much spice.”

That just about did it for the small talk.

“OK,” Phelan said, “we got an odd duck for a client here. As it were. Please don’t make me ask you to sit down. Pull over the chair.” He didn’t look up. “So we search out Rodney’s new house. Which’d probably be bought under another name. But not his real name. And, I’m wondering…if you were seventy-three, would you blow a lot of money on a house? Why not rent? I mean, have a landlord mow the yard and all. No taxes, no upkeep.”

“You could wanna leave it to somebody. Maybe Rodney’s got a life Mr. Bell doesn’t know about.”

They looked at each other, agreeing. Delpha pushed over the client chair and sat down.

It was one of the two original chairs, identical to the one she’d sat in that day Phelan had found her in the office. Shoulda spent the extra fifteen bucks and replaced both of them. That day flashed in on him, the day he knelt at her knee, listening as she talked about the book, the diary of victims Deeterman had come to get. That she was holding in her bloody hand.

He backhanded that picture right out of range. There was a lot to be said for not thinking about what you didn’t want to think about.

“Listen, when you said ‘Mr. Bell’ twice, were you doing what I think you were doing? That wasn’t just about handing over the sunglasses.”

“Kinda a test. Name’s not really your name, you might could forget it. Then again, you’re seventy-five, you might not hear right. I don’t know, Tom. Had this feeling when he came in he brought something with him. Silly, I guess.”

“Brought what?”

Delpha’s shoulders lifted, fell.

Troubled, Phelan got up and strolled over to the window to find out how the rain was doing. It was on the job again. Spearing down and splatting on the street, joining its brothers and sisters in the gutter and rolling industriously along. Rain was independent as hell.

However, it was conceivable that Thomas Phelan was not as solid-state, 24-carat Independent as he had once believed. Could that be? Could he need help with this business? The random thought beaned him. Like his brain was a pitcher brushing him off. He turned and faced Phelan Investigations’ sole employee.

She met his gaze. Her eyes inquired and then battened down.

He had no idea what would issue from his mouth.

What did: “Where’d you learn that way to talk to him? Thawed him out every time.”

She considered telling. Then said, “You fix cars, Tom?”

“Change the oil, tune-ups, tinker a little, like that.”

“Got different wrenches for different-sized jobs?”

“Sure.”

“Well, there you go,” she said.