"Mohr, L C - Fortune's Cookie" - читать интересную книгу автора (Mohr L C)

A short sweaty man came in. "Bentley? Howdayado?" He held his hand out. I had to get up and lean forward to shake it. I was sorry I made the effort. The dead fish on the end of his arm left sweat on my palm. I surreptitiously wiped it on my pants.

"Mr...uh...?" I tried to place the name.

"Pfifer, like the flute, but with a P. No appointment. I figured you'd be here, though. Thought I'd take a chance that you'd see me. It's about an insurance policy belonging to ..." He sat down and reached into his rumpled suit jacket pocket. He extracted some equally rumpled papers. "Mrs. Caroline Bentley," he read off one of them.

Cookie.

"Yes?"

"Did you know her late husband, Bernard Carson?"

"No."

He leaned back and stared over my right shoulder.

"Never met the man," I repeated. "I only knew Cook... Mrs. Bentley as a co-worker. I'd never met her second husband."

He was staring silently over my left shoulder now.

I felt uncomfortably obligated to go on. "Until his funeral. But I suppose that doesn't really count..." I realized I was babbling and I tried to stop myself. "I mean he was dead already when I met him."

No response but that undirected fishy stare.

"Why are you asking me these questions?" I asked.

He shrugged. "When there's such a large insurance policy we like to be..." He hesitated. "...secure about the circumstances."

"A large insurance policy?"

He glanced down at the papers. "A mil."

"A million dollars?" To say I was stunned would have been underestimating my reaction. Cookie hadn't mentioned the fact that she was a millionaire -- or was it millionairess ... whatever.

Mr. Pfifer was staring at a spot on my tie. "You mean my wife got a million dollars when her second husband died?" I asked. "Is there some question about the cause of death?"

"No," he answered mildly. "Sorry," he shook his head five or six times. "No, no. Not that policy. That one was only worth quarter of a mil. And Carson wasn't her second husband -- he was her third. This particular policy's on you, however."

"Me?" A squeaky voice asked. I guess it was mine.

"Yeah." He stared at my Adam's apple. "She's taking out a million dollar policy on you. Didn't you know?"

** ** **

"Darling?" I tried to get Cookie's attention that night. She was stirring something steamy in a pot while the girls whooped through the kitchen. "Cookie, dearest?"

She turned from the stove and gave me a dazzling smile. "Yes, love?"

For a moment I forgot why...