The Counterfeit Murder in the Museum of Man_ A Norman De Ratour Mystery - Alfred Alcorn [77]
Finally, I got up and, as casually as I could manage, went in search of them. They were not in the men’s room, where I availed myself of the facilities, rinsing my hands and looking into the face in the mirror. Fool, I said to it.
From the reception area, I checked to see if they were at our table. I glanced into the bar. It was dark so that at first I didn’t see them. They were there, at the far end of the polished counter with two quite good-looking women. The champagne glasses in evidence indicated that Ripley had been speaking again with his wallet.
“Are these your friends?” one of the women asked me as I approached. She and her companion were expensively and provocatively dressed, one in a short skirt with buckled boots to just below her knees, the other in black, skintight toreador pants.
“Indeed,” I replied. “And dinner is waiting.” I signed as much to Alphus and Ridley, who gave no indication of moving.
“They’re so cute,” said the woman in tight trousers, who, with broad blond features, could have been Ridley’s older sister. “Hi, my name’s Roxanne.” She took my hand and shook it.
“Norman,” I mumbled.
“And that’s Kareena. We’ve never been picked up before by a blind deaf mute.”
“Have you been picked up?” I asked, too distracted to keep the bartender from pouring me a glass of bubbly.
She giggled. “I think so. We’re going to a party … Wanna come?”
“How was this communication effected?” I asked, collusive now in taking the glass of champagne and drinking from it.
“He texted me.”
“Did he, indeed? By the way, his name’s Ridley and he’s not deaf.”
“His friend’s not so bad, either,” said Kareena in the short dress. She had on a thin jersey that showed considerable cleavage beneath a heavy gold cross. “Not that, you know, it’s my thing. I like his jacket.” She gave me a once-over as though I might be her thing.
Ridley signed to me on the side. “Hookers,” he spelled out. Then something about fishermen.
For a moment I thought he meant they worked on the trawlers that dock at the wharves not far from The Edge.
Ridley frowned at my obtuseness and made the hand sign for the letter X, tapping his upper cheek and then lower cheek, meaning “sex,” which I got. Still, he made a circle with the thumb and index finger of one hand and gestured vigorously into it with the finger of his other hand.
Roxanne caught it and laughed. “Right on.”
It should not have surprised me that Seaboard has ladies of the night plying their ancient profession. But it did.
Of course it was stupid of me not to have settled up the bill right then and left. And go to a party, go anywhere, anyplace, to hell, if necessary. Because it would have been a way of getting out of a situation that was to be the stuff of bad dreams for years to come. But I am a stick in the mud. I am of the old school. I am a fool. Simply because the restaurant had prepared a meal for us, I felt obliged not only to pay for it, but also to eat it. So I stood my ground and, to the evident disappointment of Alphus and Ridley, insisted that they say good-bye to their new friends and return to their waiting dinners.
“We’ll be right there,” Ridley signed, a bit brusque in his movements.
I went back to our table where, indeed, an anxious Marlen hovered with our main courses.
How I wish we had paid the bill in the obscurity of the bar, left a hefty tip, and disappeared into the night with the two ladies thereof. Because what happened next had all the simultaneity of a freak accident. I had scarcely sat down and sipped some of the premier cru when I heard the distinctive, New England honk of Elgin Warwick. Aghast, incredulous, I peered through