"Callahan 05 - Lady Sally's House 02 - Lady Slings the Booze v1.0" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robinson Spider)

There certainly was that possibility. I got in. The building was four stories tall, but there were only two buttons in that elevator. I pushed the top one, the doors slid shut, and I rose.
On the way up I tried to remember a quote I heard in a bar once, something about wondering what the guys who make the wine drink, and how good it is. I mean, a guy who can screw eight million people every day, the place where he goes to get screwed himself must be something pretty special, you know?
This definitely beat staking out midtown fleabags with a Polaroid during lunch hour...


2. The Jane...


When I told my father I wanted to be an artist, he said I must be queer. I finally told him; Mother was right. You are an asshole."
-JONATHAN WINIERS, quoted by Glenn Esterly, TV Guide. 16 March 1991


THE elevator opened again, and right away I had to do the control-the-face-and-walk-forward bit again. There was a little naked guy in the hail.
Well, for a second, anyway. And practically naked. Leather bondage straps crisscrossed his upper body, and he wore a little thing like the front half of a loin cloth, and felt slippers. His face made me think of Jimmy Cricket. He was about fifty and maybe five-five. He was carrying a big pile of clean white sheets and pillowcases in his arms. A good investigator can see that much in a split second.
Which is all I got. The instant he saw me he let out a squeak like a mortified mouse and vanished.
I was out of the elevator a half second later and looked both ways, but he was gone. His shadow was just making the turn to the right, hurrying to catch up. Maybe Tinkerbell could sew it back on for him.
I gave my head a little shake to settle my brains, and went to the second door on the right.
I saw the little ruby light lit up beside it, but I went in anyway. Then I controlled my face, walked forward...stopped, said, "I beg your pardon, Your Eminence. Carry on," and walked backward, until I was in the hallway again. The door shut itself, and I wiped sweat from my forehead.
Damn, Ruth had said second on the left...
I gave my head a large shake to jumpstart it, and retraced my steps to the elevator. I counted two doors to the left, three times, went there, counted again, and knocked this time.
"Come in, Mr. Quigley," said a feminine voice with whiskey throat and a high-class British accent.
I took a deep breath and went in.
And fought my face and walked forward. Look, it was not a perfect replica of my room in my parents' house back when I was a teenager. No better than eighty percent accurate. I used to pin up the Playmate of the Month at the foot of the bed, for example, not on the ceiling. And the bedspread was different, and now I think of it the window was on the wrong wall. But it was close enough to make me want to gape. It even had the bunk beds, and the Brooklyn Dodgers pennant...
The room had two occupants.
The first one I took in was the woman against the far wall. Did you ever see that bodybuilder Jayne Mansfield married? If you put both of them in some kind of mad scientist machine and combined them, you'd get what I saw standing at parade rest. She was almost as big as me. She was oiled, like a recoilless rifle. She wore sweatpants, and a tank top muscle-shirt, to which she was totally entitled, and gold bands around each bicep, and black tennis shoes with steel toes. Her haircut made her look like Joan of Arc after a long course of every hormone supplement there is. She had bodyguard's eyes. No: Secret Service eyes. They can kill anybody they want. I kept my hands very still it my sides.
This was, you will understand, sort of the backwards of what I was expecting. Maybe Mike Hammer himself could have managed to maintain an erection in that woman's bedroom. But even he wouldn't have tried to do anything with it. Not without a direct, order. I watched her for a full five seconds, until I was fairly sure she had no immediate plans to collapse my ribcage for any reason, then showed her my back teeth for a moment and turned to her companion, seated at the desk on the right.
Considerable improvement...
Did you ever see that movie A Pocketful of Miracles? Where Dave the Dude drops a bundle turning broken-down old Apple Annie into a Countess for a day, so she won't disappoint this daughter that's been in Europe for the last twenty years? Well, the way Bette Davis looked when they got done making her over-not the Before, the After-that's what this woman looked like. If she walked into the White House the same time as a bunch of tourists, the staff would cut her out of the pack and take her right up to the Oval Office without even asking her name. Buckingham Palace, same deal. Before I could stop myself I pulled my tie up, loosened it again, buttoned the collar button (for the first time since I'd owned the shirt), pulled the tie tight again, and buttoned my double-breasted. She couldn't have seen the wrinkled bit of tie that now hung below the knot in the back, but I was painfully aware of it. I could feel dirt under my fingernails, and behind my ears. I could feel my ten o'clock shadow growing.
And I could feel something else growing too, in my pants-even though she wasn't showing much more skin than any other Countess would have. I mean, she had impact.
She had hair so red I decided no one would dye it that color, in upswept waves. Her gown was greener than the stack of money it must have cost, and left one shoulder bare. Impressive cleavage.
I guessed her at fifty or so, but like Ruth downstairs in terrific shape, right down to the skin on the backs of her hands. In the right light, you'd have bought thirty-five, no trouble. Even the wrong light wouldn't have put you off, either. She had something she wasn't ever going to lose. No detectible makeup. Wedding band on one hand, a diamond the size of a salted whole peanut on the other. Emerald necklace and earrings. Twinkling eyes. One eyebrow raised slightly, apparently permanently. She'd seen it all, and enjoyed most of it.
I wanted to bow. But I didn't want to look even a little bit like I might be reaching for my armpit, not with that Amazon watching. I kept my hands at my sides, clicked my heels and bowed like Eric von Stroheim. "A pleasure to meet you, Your Ladyship," I said.
This time I had the right one. "So I'm told," she agreed throatily, "and I won't argue. Welcome to my House, Mr. Quigley."
She sounded...well, not drunk: nobody with a British accent that classy ever sounds drunk. Not even really what you'd call high. Elevated, maybe. One sip past a happy glow. Merry..."It's certainly a very impressive place, ma'am."
"Yes, it is. You must see it later."
What had I just been doing? Never mind. "I'd like that Uh...I frightened a little naked guy with an armful of linen out in the hail; I hope he wasn't an important customer orsomething."
Lady Sally McGee's eyes twinkled. "My fault. I had Mistress Cynthia instruct Robin not to let you run across him until you were acxlimatized-so naturally he tried to earn a spanking.
Don't worry about it. And don't mention it to Cynthia, when you meet her: that'll teach him! Let me introduce Priscilla. She is the bouncer here."
Ah. "Ah." Not one of the whores. "Not one of the working girls."
"Of course she's a working girl; you don't think she bounces people for free, do you? But no, she is not presently one of my artists."
They called them "artists" here, huh?
Heroic actions aren't always something you can see. Right then I did a heroic thing nobody else knew about. I kept myself from saying, "I may not know much about art, but I know what I like." It took some doing, but hey, I'm a professional.
"Hi, Priscilla," I said as politely as I knew how. "I'm Joe Quigley."
"Hi, Joe," she said, in a friendly enough way. She didn't offer to shake hands, but I didn't mind that a lot.
"Would you care for a drink, Mr. Quigley?" Lady Sally asked. On the messy desk, sitting on a Math textbook-the very one I'd never read, by God!-were two glasses with stems and a bottle. The kind of wine with a cork, and nothing on it in English anywhere.
I'd have preferred even cheap bourbon. But I can't turn down a free drink; I've got my license to think of. "Tenderly, ma'am."
She smiled for the first time. "Then I'll entrust you with one." She poured, doing that little twist thing after each one, and handed me a glass. I did another Von Stroheim as I took it, and touched my glass to hers. Our eyes met, and I lost track of where I was for a moment...
Toast, toast, toast...nothing trite, nothing corny, nothin crude. There went most of my repertoire. I remembered once I'd heard a wise old barkeeper say once, and used it: "To the ones who weren't as lucky."
Her eyes widened slightly, and then got a faraway look. "Yes, she said in that husky Tallulah Bankhead voice, "I will drink to that."
So we did.