Читать книгу An Accident Waiting to Happen - Vincent Banville - Страница 7

The bead curtain clicked merrily as I went through it. Out of curiosity I peered into the first room on the left. It was a broom cupboard, containing brushes, and a battered-looking Hoover. Moving on, I knocked on the second door. I heard movement inside, so I turned the knob and went in.

A very large woman was sitting on a sofa opposite me. She was wearing a tent-like robe that covered her from her neck to her feet. Her hair was drawn back tightly into a bun, giving the skin of her face a stretched look. She was eating yoghurt from a tub, spooning it greedily into the cavern of her mouth. She paused when she saw me, then glanced to her right.

I followed her gaze and saw a tiny man sitting behind a huge desk. It was hard to judge, because he was sitting down, but he couldn’t have been more than five feet in height. He had a mass of greying hair, cruel little eyes and a curl to his mouth that said mess with me and you’ll be very sorry indeed. He was wearing a pinstripe grey suit and a dark blue shirt and tie. He had a little moustache under his nose that looked as if a centipede had crawled there and died. I took an instant dislike to him.

‘Who the hell are you?’ the little guy asked me, in a surprisingly deep voice.

Deciding not to take offence at his tone, I said mildly, ‘I’m Blaine. You rang. Said you had something that might interest me.’

‘Blaine, Blaine …’ He looked over at the woman on the sofa. ‘You know anything about a Blaine, Gertie?’

Gertie shovelled in another spoonful of yoghurt, then let the tub rest on her mound of stomach. ‘He’s the private dick,’ she told Tiny Tim. ‘You found him in the Yellow Pages.’

‘I take it you’re Bertie Boyer,’ I said, moving to stand in front of the desk. ‘Owner of the Purple Pussy nightclub and husband of Gertie here.’

‘Husband?’ Gertie said. ‘That’s one for the birds. When are you going to make an honest woman of me, anyway, you little squirt? We’ve been engaged now since Jesus was a lad.’

‘There’s a time and a place to discuss that,’ Boyer told her sourly. ‘And it’s definitely not now. Why don’t you take your fat backside out of here and go help Denise get the place ready for tonight?’

‘Why don’t you go and take a running jump? Preferably off the side of a cliff. And you know Denise and me are not talking. Ever since I found the two of you together in here the night before last.’

‘I’ve told you, we were discussing the stock market —’

‘With your arm around her and your tongue stuck in her ear?’

Getting fed up with this family argument, I broke in. ‘I’d love to stand here and do referee, but I have some other business to attend to. Maybe you could continue this later and in the meantime fill me in on whatever it is you want me to do?’

They glared at one another. Finally Gertie shoved herself off the sofa and padded out the door. A hippopotamus couldn’t have done it more gracefully.

‘Women,’ Boyer muttered, shaking his head. I waited hopefully to see if the centipede moustache would fall off, but it stayed attached. He waved a hand at a straight-backed chair. ‘Take the weight off your feet,’ he said. ‘I don’t like people looking down at me.’

I did as I was bid, the chair creaking slightly as I planted myself in it. Then I sat back to listen to Bertie Boyer’s tale of woe.