A Steak in Murder (11 page)

"Basically, everyone thinks I work too hard, neglect too much, and," she added honestly, "that I don't do it very well even though I love it."

"That true?"

"Maybe."

"So can you fix it?"

Irritation hit her like a punch in the stomach. What was she doing talking to a guy she hardly knew about
things she refused to discuss even with Myles? And what
business was it of his, anyway?

"Thing is," Royal said conversationally, turning around to look at her again, "you got a horse learns he can throw you off if you ride him rough, you stop ridin' rough. That's all."

"Thanks," said Quill. "I'm sorry I blabbered on like that. I don't know why I burdened you with it. Not only is it not your problem, but . . ." She took a deep breath and clamped her lips together.

"But ol' Marge hears about this and she'll take advantage. Tell you what. Ol' Marge is a pretty damn good businesswoman, but I don't tell her a lot. Not by a long shot. So don't you worry . . ."

. . . your pretty little head about it, Quill thought.

". . . your pretty little head about it. What you should do is decide what went wrong with you in charge before and what you could change if you ran it now. Think about that."

"I will," Quill lied. "And thank you. If you could just drop me off at the Palate."

"You don't wanta see Brady's mare?"

"Well, I—"

"She don't want to see the mare, boss."

"Of course I want to see the mare," Quill said. "It's just that I've got quite a bit to do and I really . . ."

Brady pulled to a stop in front of the Palate.

"It'll take just a minute," Royal assured her. "Women like horses."

"Maybe some other time, Royal. But thank you, though." She reached for Max, preparing to get out.

"Thing is." Royal stopped, then started again. "Thing is, I didn't know you were the same person that did that magnolia."

"The one with balls," Quill said.

"Right. You ever paint bulls?"

"You mean your bull?"

"Sure. I'm talking a commission, here."

"Gosh, Royal. Paint a bull? I've done people, of course, but I don't know a thing about a bull's anatomy. I wouldn't really know where to start. I mean I would, but I don't know if I want to."

"Now, you look. You think about painting that bull. And I'll think about helping you get back the Inn. What do you say?"

Quill just stared at him. Oddly, she thought of Marge, stout in her denim skirt and brave bandanna. Suddenly, she didn't know if she liked men, or people with deals, or even if she wanted the Inn back. She felt trapped in a totally different world, with bewildering rules.

Brady idled the motor.

"Okay," Quill said. "I'll think about it. But I'm not going to make a decision until I talk to Marge about it. All right? She should know if I'm planning something."

Royal nodded. As if she'd passed some test.

"A test for what?" she asked John Raintree that evening. She twirled the phone cord between her fingers and released it. "Could you . . . You must have a little time coming. I really need to see you, John. Please."

"Darling," said Lally Preston, "we simply cannot cut from that sweet-looking cow to a plate of beef. I refuse to do it."

"It will make a very impressive opening to the show,"
Colonel Calhoun said.

"It will make a very impressive light show on my phone boards at the studio when my little old ladies call in to protest."

"This meeting of the Special Committee for International Night should come to order." Harvey Bozzel cleared his throat in a tentative way. "Please?"

They were crowded into Harvey's office: Meg, Quill,
Colonel Calhoun, Leonid the Russian, Harvey, and Lally
Preston. Lally moved in a cloud of perfume so expensive Quill couldn't name it. She was dressed in a skinny slip dress that showed off the anorexic build common to (as
Lally's publicist billed her) stars of screen and television,
and for all Quill knew, the stage. Except the stage actresses she knew had a healthier respect for their bodies
than to starve themselves fifteen pounds thinner than na
ture dictated. Lally was loud, as well as too thin. And
her gold bracelets clanked. Meg seemed to get along with
her just fine.

"Miss Preston, I understand the sensitivity of a woman
of your artistic—ah—sensitivities," Colonel Calhoun said in his high-pitched voice. "But we're talking cattle, here. You aren't one of the vegetarian groups, are you?"

Lally gave him the Look. Lally was good at the Look. Quill had tried practicing it herself in her bathroom mirror. She gave it up, because she couldn't get the icy-
slitted-eye thing right. Her tight-lipped pout, she thought,
was not half bad, although it made her lips ache.

"I," Lally said, "am the Rusticated Lady. You are familiar with the show? Perhaps not, since we do NOT feature barnyard animals. Only the best produce off a country gentleman's estate."

"You own a country gentleman's estate?" Colonel Calhoun seemed to be genuinely interested.

"Of course not. I live in Manhattan. Central Park West, if that means anything to you. Which I'm certain it does not."

"Then, you married to a country gentleman?" the colonel pressed on.

"I am divorced. From a stockbroker."

"So what in the name of goodness do you know about
what comes off a country estate?"

Quill studied her toes. She was wearing sandals for the
first time that year, and she'd painted her toenails pink. It was an odd thing about Colonel Calhoun, she'd decided. He never swore. She had an idea that rough tough cattlemen always swore. So much for stereotypes. She sneaked a look at her sister. Meg was lost in thought, doodling on the pad she used to create menus. Her short dark hair was sticking up in cowlicks. She was wearing a T-shirt with a cranky-faced duckling carrying a sign that read:
I'm Bad.
She was smiling and humming an (off-key) version of "Strangers in the Night."

"Perhaps we could get back to the point here?" Harvey said. The desperation in his voice made Quill feel a little sorry for him. This was a tough crowd.

"In Russia, we do not often get to the point," Leonid said. "I am glad to be in this country."

Harvey had a white board on an easel in his office and he went to it now. There was a bulleted list on it in Magic
Marker.

INTERNATIONAL NIGHT

Sponsors: The American Association of Texas Longhorn Cattle Breeders (A.A.T.L.C.) and Russians in Capitalist Enterprise (R.I.C.E.)

-The Place: The Dew' Drop Inn

-The Time: Saturday 8:00 p.m.

-Honored Guest: Lally Preston of
The Rusticated
Lady
show

-The Agenda:

—8:00 Introductory Remarks, Harvey Bozzel,
pres. B.A.

—8:15 Welcome by His Honor Mayor Elmer

Henry

—8:30 Dinner prepared by Ma
î
tre Margaret Quilliam

(menu to follow)

—9:30 Speech "Why I Love This Country" by
Leonid Menshivik of R.I.C.E.

—10:00 Speech "The Genetics of the Longhorn
Cow" by Col. Randall Calhoun (ret)

—10:30 Brandy and desserts

"How's the menu coming, Meg?" Harvey asked. "Meg?"

Meg glanced up. She looked at the white board. She frowned. "The mayor's not going to like you giving introductory remarks, Harvey."

"It's appropriate," Harvey said nervously. "None of this would be happening if it weren't for me."

"What does the mayor care? You'd better take yourself off the agenda. And besides, ten-thirty's too late for
brandy and desserts in Hemlock Falls. Half the Chamber
will be asleep. So if you boot yourself off the agenda, it'll give us an earlier evening." She went back to her menu with a frown.

Harvey raised the eraser, then lowered it with a defiant
air. "We're getting a written message from the governor, and I'm going to read it."

"Oh, God," Lally Preston said.

"Your TV show will surely want to feature the governor's message, Miss Preston."

"We surely will not. I'm national. Who gives a shit about the governor of New York?"

Now, Lally, Quill thought, Lally swears like a trooper.
Or like I thought a rancher would swear.

"Quill?" From the sound of it, in a little while, Harvey would turn petulant.

She looked up from her toes. Harvey tossed the eraser into the air with nonchalance. It bounced off the easel and onto the table. "Could you show us what you've designed for a menu cover? And the program?"

The afternoon before, Quill had gone up the hill to see if she wanted to draw Royal's bull. She decided she didn't. There was absolutely nothing there. That was the
trouble with drawing animals. They were sentient, but
there was no
there
there. At least not with the bull. What
she had noticed was that all the cows together generated
a sort of bovine mega-personality. Cows in a herd were
much more "there" than individual cows. They had their
assigned duties—nurse the calf, eat, move from one por
tion of the rose garden to another—and they performed these duties in concert without much obvious communi
cation among themselves. For Quill, this interfered with
cows as a subject. Painting, above all, was about capturing the "there," the true part of what you looked at. The true part of a magnolia was in the viewer. The true part
of the cow was in the cow. And it wasn't very interesting.

What she had decided, after a lengthy phone call with
John about ways and means to buy back the Inn, was
that although she had no interest in painting Impressive,
she did want to donate a program cover for International
Night, especially since John felt there could be some
long-term profit in a longhorn beef program. She'd done
a few preliminary sketches that morning. And John was
due on the early evening train.

"Quill?"

"Sorry, Harvey. I did a couple of charcoal things."
She set her sketch pad upright in front of her and flipped
to the first page. "This is Leonid and Royal with Im
pressive, shaking hands over the bull's horns."

"That was my idea," Harvey said.

"Yes it was. And this is the other." She backed away from the sketch, letting it stand. She'd drawn a crowd of
people, a little overfed, mouths slightly open, in strong
aggressive strokes of the charcoal. The cows were in the
background, the pencil strokes soft and indistinct.

"Those cows look sad," Leonid said. "Quite sad."

Colonel Calhoun was indignant. "Cows don't have feelings, Mr. Menshivik. Miss Quilliam? Would you go back to that first one? The very good idea Mr. Bozzel had? Yes. Thank you. I thought you knew that Impressive was my bull. Royal bought him from me, yes, but
he is absolutely on the Calhoun side of the Calhoun Ros
siter herd."

"That is an appropriate topic for discussion for our subcommittee," Harvey said.

"Subcommittee?" Lally said. "You've got a subcom
mittee? Let me guess. His subcommittee is you, the Rus
sian, and this cowpoke here. Which is why the three of you are all over this agenda. I told you I wanted Meg to talk about the recipes, and I'm.going to insist that Meg talk about the recipes. You can have her talk at the dinner, or not, it's up to you. If I don't catch her there, I'll catch her in the kitchen. I'm warning you, we're going to feature very little of this crap about genetics and Russian hoo-ha and village politics."

Harvey nodded as if he had it all under control. "Understood, Miss Preston. Is there anything at all you need from us?"

"The speeches. Copies of the speeches. We have to know what's going to be broadcast."

"I don't think you do," Colonel Calhoun said. "And I have to say that my speech on cow genetics reflects years of study on my part. Years. I do not allow copies in the hands of anyone who might take advantage of my research."

"You can bet your cute little butt I don't give a flying . . . hoot . . . about cow genetics. I do give a damn if you're going to bore the pants off my housewives in Peoria."

"
I myself, speak from the heart. I have no written speech. In Russia," Leonid continued darkly, "it is sometimes not wise to write things down."

"Yeah, right," Lally said. "Then you're going to have to do it once for the crew and once for the camera. Otherwise, forget it."