Even the Butler Was Poor (4 page)

"I'm starting to get lower back pains."

"Oh, you always get those when you drive."

"But I haven't had a single pain lately. Not, come to think of it, in three years."

"Meaning that I'm the true cause of yet another of your multitude of problems?"

"Hey, I'm not blaming anyone. Merely commenting on a fascinating fact."

"If you think information about your backside is fascinating, I can see why you've been relegated to dating bimbos like Candy. What's her . . . wrong turn."

"Beg pardon?"

"You just turned onto the wrong road."

"No, I didn't. Fiddler's Lane leads right to your road."

"I'm off Old Fiddler's Lane."

"Ah," he remarked. He slowed the car, scanning the road for a place to turn around.

"Of course, we could park right around here and then trudge down through the brush, brambles, and trees. That'd take us to the rear of my cottage," said H.J. "That would probably, though, put too much of a strain on your ailing back."

"How come you live in such a dinky cottage, by the way? All the money you're allegedly making from compromising your talent ought to allow you to live in something a mite larger than a potting shed."

"Well, I prefer to invest my money wisely rather than dumping it into flashy pink mansions and—"

"Invest it in Rick Dell and other sound financial institutions, you mean?" He swung the car into a wide gravel driveway that apparently led to a far off house hidden by the trees and the darkness.

"Hold it a sec, Ben."

He hit the brake, leaving his car halfway backed out of the drive. "Something wrong?"

"Look back along the road, over yonder."

He twisted in his seat, squinting to look out the rear window. "Give me a hint about what I'm supposed to be seeing."

"There's a car parked back there, off the road and in among the brush. A Mercedes I think."

"Probably just a romantic couple."

"No, when we passed it I noticed . . . Yes, there it is again. See?"

"Looks like the beam of a flashlight, few feet from the rear of the car."

"I spotted it as we were driving by," she said. "Someone just slipped clear of that car and is going to head downhill through the maples."

"Might just be somebody with car trouble."

"If you're having car trouble, you don't hide your damn car in the underbrush, Ben. You don't go sneaking through the woods to peek in my back windows."

"You think whoever it is with that flashlight is heading for your house?"

"Well, there is some precedent for that. They broke into my place once already tonight, remember." H.J. yanked open his glove compartment, poked a hand into it. "Don't you even have a flashlight?"

"Nope."

"Okay, all right. Here, take these matches." She produced a book of matches from her purse. "First thing to do is scoot over there and take down the license number."

"Actually the first thing to do, H.J., is to go call the law. If this is another break-in attempt, we—"

"I don't want to deal with the police yet. Not until I find out more about what those goons are looking for."

"We already know they're after something they're willing to torture and kill for."

"Jesus, never mind." She eased the door open and, before he could lunge across and grab hold of her, ducked out into the misty night.

T
he headlights of the Mercedes suddenly blossomed down the road, just as Ben was stepping clear of his car. The prowler must have heard H.J. approaching and decided to get away from there.

Ben started running along the dark road to catch up with his erstwhile wife. Just then the parked Mercedes came completely to life, motor roaring. It shot free of its hiding place amidst the trees. When it hit the road, the headlight beams caught the figure of H.J. between them.

She was about three hundred yards in front of the oncoming car, illuminated by the harsh white light.

Ben yelled, "Get off the road!" and started running faster.

H.J. seemed unable to move, halting there in the middle of the road. The black car was heading straight at her, picking up speed.

Sprinting, Ben reached her. He grabbed her, one arm snapping around her slim waist and the other hand clutching her shoulder. Staggering and stumbling, he rushed her toward the side of the misty road. The Mercedes went rushing by, like a harsh night wind.

Ben, tangled up with H.J., went falling into the brush at the roadside. The two of them rolled and tumbled until they thumped into a tree trunk "Ease off," complained H.J., "you're jabbing me in the ribs." She wriggled free of him.

"Bastard almost got us." He shook his head, sucking in a couple of deep breaths.

"Did you get a look at him?"

"Nope, didn't get the chance." He pushed himself up to a kneeling position. "I was concentrating on saving your ass—and mine."

"Yes, thanks. I appreciate that." She was on her feet, bending to offer him a hand up. "And you didn't, I suppose, think to catch his license number as he whizzed by?"

Ignoring her proffered help, Ben got himself upright. "Now that you mention it, H.J., no, I didn't."

"Can't be helped, I guess." She started hiking, limping very slightly, back toward his car. "Sure would've helped, though, if you had."

Ben followed, making a low growling sound now and then but not trusting himself to speak.

H
ands behind her back, H.J. was scanning the book titles on one of his living room shelves. "Listen, I can phone my sister over in Westchester," she was saying. "I can stay there just as well as here."

"If these guys know where you live, they may also know you have a sister." He was crouched in front of his fireplace, arranging three small logs on the grating. "Nope, you'll be safer here than at Betty's."

"They might also, whoever they are, be aware that I have an ex-husband right here in Brimstone."

"That's less likely." He struck a match. "We haven't been officially married for three years, and you're using your own name again. Driving over here from your place, I made sure we weren't tailed."

"Kindling," she said, moving along to study another shelf.

"Eh?"

"You never put enough kindling under the damn logs. That poor fire's just going to sputter for awhile and then die."

"There's a rule for situations like this," he told her, standing up and away from the sputtering fire. "One never criticizes one's benefactors. That's part of English common law and dates back to about the middle of the—"

"You've got over a hundred diet books."

"Seven of them actually."

"They haven't," she observed, turning to eye him up and down, "helped much. You're even pudgier now than during our days together."

"I am, yes. Because in those grim days—called by most historians the Bleak Decade—I worried a lot more than I do now." He settled into a black armchair and watched the fireplace. "Worry and anguish are a great aid to shedding weight. I figure if you hadn't had all those affairs you did during our marriage, I'd have ended up weighing around three hundred pounds. But the Grief Diet you put me on kept me relatively svelte and trim, thus—"

"Why don't we have a truce?" she suggested, coming over to sit in a chair facing his. "We won't squabble at all while we're working together on this case. I'll simply ignore your obesity. I'll hide the goose bumps I'm getting because your fire is so anemic. I'll even—"

"Six and a half pounds overweight, Helen Joanne, isn't technically known as obesity. Nor is . . . okay, a truce. You quit first."

She smiled sweetly, spread her hands wide. "I have—not another bit of bickering will pass my lips. Honest."

"All right then," he said, "let's talk about this case of yours."

"Of ours."

"I've been thinking about all that's happened tonight," he began, trying to ignore the fact that his fire had ceased burning and was now only smoldering. "You say Rick Dell wasn't involved in drug dealing."

"That's one of the few things about him I'm sure of." Leaving his chair, she knelt in front of the fireplace.

"The thing is, it has to be something that involves more than just a few thousand dollars. Prowlers who drive around in expensive imported cars don't bother with paltry sums."

"I know what you're getting at, Ben, but it doesn't have to be something illegal." She slid the firescreen aside, and added fresh kindling under the logs.

"I think it does," he persisted. "Dell was bragging about big money coming in, but he sure wasn't on the brink of having his own HBO comedy special or starring in a television sitcom." Ben held up his left hand, fingers spread wide. "Which leaves, my dear Watson, the following possibilities for—"

"Don't do your Basil Rathbone voice just now."

"Oops, sorry. Didn't realize I'd slipped into that." Clearing his throat, he continued. "We'll list some of the other obvious possibilities. One, Dell swiped something from somebody. Something fairly valuable and relative small. Could be gems, cash, gold, bonds and so on. Two, he has some incriminating evidence against someone. That could be in the form of letters diaries, audio cassettes, video tapes, photographs. Three, he—"

"Ben, it could really just be something as innocent as gambling winnings." She touched a match to the rebuilt fire. "Or family money he'd come into somehow."

"Was he a gambler?"

"Sure, that's how the loan sharks got him on their client list in the first place." Giving a nod of satisfaction as the fire commenced blazing, she returned to her chair.

"A gambler who loses all the time isn't likely to have a satchel full of money lying around."

"It only takes one big win to wipe out a lot of—"

"Sure, that's what most gamblers think, but it ain't necessarily true, daughter."

"Gabby Hayes."

"Right, used to be one of your favorites." He stood up and resumed his own voice. "You have got to accept the fact that this loot you're so anxious to track down is a by-product of something crooked."

She sighed and let herself slump in the chair. "Well, maybe you're right," she admitted. "I'll go over to Long Island tomorrow, though, since I do want to satisfy myself about what's hidden in Buggsy's hollow leg. There's no reason, however, for your coming along. I brought this on myself and you needn't get further tangled up in it."

"I already promised I'd go to the old actors home with you," he reminded her. "Once we find out the dummy's secret, we go to the cops. Agreed?"

She looked up at him, a bit sadly. Nodding, she answered, "Yes, you're absolutely right. That's the smartest course of action, Ben."

He got up, yawned once. "Want a cup of cocoa before turning in?"

"Nothing, thanks." She got to her feet, stretching. "Been a very rough day. Which room is mine?"

"If you'll just walk this way, mum," he invited, shifting into his sinister Karloff butler voice.

"It's going to be strange," she commented as she followed him up the staircase. "Sleeping under the same roof with you again, but in a separate bed."

Stopping, he glanced over his shoulder. "Right now, H.J., I think that's the best idea."

"Separate but equal," she said, smiling. "Yes, that is best."

He hesitated a few seconds before resuming his ascent.

B
en was awake the next morning and still entirely alone in his big brass bed, when the phone on his nightstand started ringing. He hadn't slept especially well, mostly because he'd had the suspicion that H.J. was going to wander in during the night with an excuse for leaving her room down the hall and sharing his bed. That hadn't happened, but he wasn't sure if that was good or bad.

She was as attractive as ever to him—at least physically. But starting up a relationship with her again was about as wise as having a couple of martinis on your way home from an AA meeting.

He answered the telephone on the third ring. "Hello."

"Ben Spanner, please."

"Speaking."

"Ben, old buddy, this is Les Beaujack at Lenzer, Moon & Lombard. I've been thinking about you lately and . . . Say, I didn't wake you up, did I? My wife always tells me I have an awful habit of calling people at the crack of dawn."

Ben sat up in bed, brushed at his hair with his free hand. "No, that's okay, Lea. I've been up since . . ." He squinted at the bedside clock, noting that it was 8:40. "Been up and around since eight."

Beaujack, a vice president at the ad agency, did most of the hiring of voice talent for commercials. "You know, old buddy, I'm feeling damn stupid," he confessed. "Here we've been busting our collective ass trying to come up with the right man to play an English muffin on our new My Man Chumley radio spots—and I never even thought of you until late last night."

"Bloody shame, old man," said Ben, drifting into his James Mason voice. "Because I can do seventeen different British voices, don't you know. I'm jolly well certain that if I come in to read for your people, you'll—"