Quarry in the Middle - Max Allan Collins [17]
That pause was promising.
“How long,” she asked, tapping her ash off in the tray, “are you going to be in town?”
“Not sure. Few days. Maybe we could get together. Have lunch or something.”
She shrugged. “I only have another half hour set. Why don’t you stick around? We could go over to the Wheelhouse and have breakfast. They’re open twenty-four hours.”
Then she smiled, sighed smoke dreamily, stubbed out her cigarette, and headed up onto the stage, swaying her hips a little, whether for the audience or me, I couldn’t say. But she had fine legs for a woman her age, strappy heels doing nice things to their musculature, her full caboose making the skirt twitch.
Warm applause greeted her, and she did “But Not For Me,” and I sat wondering how I’d managed to muff it so bad. Here we’d been having this nice friendly conversation, and I reflexively gave her the vet medicine cover story, before realizing I had no reasonable segue from that to asking her if she’d introduce me to her husband.
She would want to know why, and I couldn’t think of anything that made sense. I doubted Richard Cornell was in the market for animal tranquilizers.
By the time she’d started her next song, “You Do Something to Me,” I’d about given up. I figured I should just disappear before her set was over, though snubbing the boss’ wife (separated from him or not) was not exactly a great plan, either.
But I’d pretty much decided on skipping, and was maybe three seconds away from slipping out of the booth, when a six-footer slid in opposite.
He was dark-haired with some white coming in on the sideburns, a dark tan, lazy eyes and a smirky mouth, but handsome enough at about forty, attired in pale yellow slacks and a darker yellow-and-black checked sportcoat over a black shirt open a few buttons to display several gold chains and some curly black hair.
“My name’s Richard Cornell,” he said, and extended a hand. “I run the Paddlewheel. Did you and my wife have a nice talkie-poo?”
Chapter Four
I shook his hand. He smiled across the booth at me in a fashion that I’m sure fooled a lot of people, but I could see the coldness in the aqua-blue eyes, which were half-lidded and made his gaze seem casual when it was heart-attack serious.
“She’s a wonderful singer, your wife,” I said.
“Indeed she is.” The British accent was light but there, a touch of class that went well with his lilting baritone.
“Friendly, too. But I don’t want you to get the wrong idea, Mr. Cornell.”
He leaned back, smiled on half his face. He’d blinked maybe three times since sitting down. “Angela’s a big girl. We’re separated. She goes her way and I go mine…though I maintain an interest in her welfare. Didn’t get your name.”
“Jack Gibson,” I said.
Cornell folded his arms and the smile widened, though it had no warmth. “And what brings you to my part of the world, Mr. Gibson?”
Not this part of the world—his part of the world.
In about half a second I processed the following: he wouldn’t have sat down casually to chat up a stray Paddlewheel patron, and as a nearly ex-husband he had no reason to check up on or protect his wife, meaning he was (for whatever reason) suspicious about me, I’d been noticed somehow, and if I trotted out the veterinary meds schtick right now, I’d soon be dancing in the parking lot with two or three of his satin-vest bully boys before he even got around to blinking again.
“Are you always this attentive to your guests, Mr. Cornell?”
A black waitress in an Afro wig delivered him three fingers of what looked to be Scotch over two ice cubes. He smiled, said, “Thank you, darlin’…drinky-poo, Mr. Gibson?”
“No thanks.”
“That’ll be all, darlin’,” he told her, kissed the air in her direction and she smiled and walked off.
He watched with admiration, his smile genuine now. “Boobs like cannonballs,” he said, and shook his head, eyes darting up. “You believe it? Wants to be a grade-school teacher. Mine were all prunes.”
“Community college student, huh?