Read Online As she rides by by David M Pierce - Free Book Online

and stayed there. I said I had no intention of moving into some third-rate flea pit surviving on room service and take-out Chinkie-chink and passing my precious time away either playing gin rummy with some beery policeman or, even worse, watching afternoon television, although I do confess a secret fondness for Queen for a Day. ”
    “Me too,” I said.
    “Besides all that,” he said, “I have thirty mixed bouquets of Duet, Honor, Bewitched, Charisma, Cathedral, Tropicana, and Angel Face to prepare for a luncheon tomorrow, to say nothing of my normal business. And of course, Lauren Hutton, that bitch, would have to choose tomorrow night to open in that depressing play of hers, you must know the one, it’s all about this humble housewife who turns the tables on her would-be violator and bricks him up in the fireplace.”
    “What’s an Angel Face?” I inquired.
    “A rose, dear, what else?” he said. “The most beautiful mauvey lavender color; highly fragrant.”
    “How many roses would you use in, say, a month? Just out of curiosity.”
    “It does rather depend on what month,” he said, “but on an average, twelve to fifteen hundred.”
    “I’m beginning to see why your callers called,” I said. “You are talking sizable sums, especially when you throw in all those carnations and mother-in-law’s tongues. Did the cops ever tell you who those guys were?”
    “One particular one did,” he said. “We were, briefly, lovers, as a matter of fact. I wonder if there are any gay private eyes?”
    “I know there’s at least one,” I said. “He hired my services once to do something he didn’t want to do himself.”
    “And what was that, I wonder?”
    “Nothing spectacular,” I said. “Run a check on his sister’s husband.”
    “What happened?”
    “He didn’t check, but at least the guy who hired me is still talking to his sister. The two; who were they?”
    “A Phil something and a Ted nothing, both originally from Pittsburgh, fittingly. My friend sent me copies of their records, too, or their sheets,’ as you insiders would put it, which were roughly as clean as the bed linen in a Piraeus boarding house. Low-level frighteners, my friend called them. No firearm convictions, no record of ever having mucked about with explosives, I am only too delighted to report. And that’s quaint,” he said, pointing to a needlepoint hanging I had next to the Dufy,’ which did not say something vulgar about bowel movements but depicted, in a deliberately childlike fashion, an airport at night.
    “Umm,” I said. “The chap who gave it to me lives in a mobile home park in Sacramento .”
    “Even quainter,” he said, glancing at the elegant timepiece on his tanned wrist. “So how about it, Mr. Daniel? Care to stick closer to me than a second skin until twelve Wednesday, or does the idea of spending so much time with a screaming queen upset you?”
    “Scream all you like,” I said. “It doesn’t upset me at all. Wait till you hear my daily rate, that might upset you.” It failed to do so in the slightest. “Who put you on to me, by the way?”
    “You’re the detective,” he said. “Detect, maestro.”
    “Well,” I said, “unless you saw my cunning little ad in the last month’s Gay News, I detect you have been drinking recently.”
    “Correct.”
    “I detect you have been drinking recently in a bar called the Green Flamingo, which is on the corner of Santa Monica and South Tangerine, not ten minutes from your place.”
    “A hit, sir,” he said. “A veritable hit.”
    “Where you undoubtedly talked to the manager, Richard, aka Miss Peggy, when he’s working, who’s an old friend of mine. Did he tell you he saved my ass once, and maybe my life as well?”
    “No, not a word did he utter,” Phineas said.
    “Well, he did,” I uttered. “In his full getup including blond beehive and stilettos, too. Anyway. You, sir, have just hired yourself a bodyguard starting now, or you will have as soon