Read Online Design for Dying by Renee Patrick - Free Book Online Page B

them about me and Ruby.”
    â€œWhy do you think it was me? Plenty of people knew you two were an item.”
    â€œYeah, were an item. Ruby forgot about me. You didn’t. Those cops grilled me like they found the pistol in my hand. What did you tell them? And I mean exactly.”
    â€œThat you and Ruby used to go together. That’s all.”
    â€œAnd that you don’t like me. You never liked me.” He brushed at his lapel. “It’s okay, Lillian. You can admit it.”
    â€œI have no opinion of you one way or the other.” But he was right. Slow-cooling spite against Tommy had been a factor in my pointing the police in his direction.
    Tommy plucked a comb from the basket and considered the beads adorning it. “Next question. What do the cops have?”
    â€œNot enough to hold you, so what difference does it make?” He wouldn’t dare pull any moves in the store, I reassured myself, so I could chance a little bravado.
    â€œThey couldn’t hold me because I didn’t kill Ruby. I’d like to know who did, though. And find him before the cops do. A few minutes ahead of them, that’d be enough. So I’ll ask again. What do they have?”
    â€œHow would I know?”
    In response Tommy stared at me, content to wait me out. One of his bulky compatriots tried to stifle a belch. I needed them gone before Mr. Valentine showed up. “Ruby was going out a lot. With rich new friends.”
    â€œWho, Armand and Natalie? Forget about them.”
    Armand, he’d said. Not Armando the way Vi had remembered the name. “You know them?” I asked.
    Tommy laughed, a mirthless little bark. “Yeah, I know ’em. Those two aren’t involved. And they’re long gone, the both of them. What else you got?”
    â€œNothing.”
    â€œNothing? No tidbits from that costume broad?” Morrow would never have told Tommy about our trip to Paramount. Only one person could have let that slip. Vi, feeling sorry for her jilted boss.
    Tommy tapped the comb against the glass, his face softening into a concerned parish priest look. “What do you have against me, Lillian? Didn’t me and Ruby show you a good time when we took you out?”
    â€œSure. Dragging me to nightclubs because some ‘businessman’ pal of yours wanted to dance with a ‘nice girl.’ The trouble with those guys, when they think you’re a nice girl they try twice as hard to put a hand up your skirt.”
    â€œSo you don’t like me and my friends. You don’t have to. This is America. But I want to do the right thing here. For Ruby’s sake.”
    â€œI think we can safely say Ruby’s past caring.”
    â€œJesus, that’s some way to talk. You two were friends.”
    â€œFor a little while. But you and I aren’t friends. You’re the guy who got Ruby hooked on the high life. And look where she ended up.”
    Tommy reared back as if I’d slapped him, that goddamned forelock falling into his eyes again. “We had some laughs, Ruby and me. We could have kept on having them if she hadn’t given me the air. Remember that. She walked away from me.”
    â€œThat may have been the one smart thing she did.”
    I expected him to scowl at me. Instead he gazed at the decorative comb he’d lifted out of the basket as if it contained the answer he needed. Then he dropped it into his coat pocket. Brazenly stealing it right in front of me, knowing I wouldn’t challenge him. And he was right.
    â€œI can live with you not helping me,” he said. “But you’re not helping the cops, either. Keep your trap shut from now on.”
    â€œFor Ruby’s sake?”
    He looked at me, his eyes lifeless and dull, and I knew why they called him the Shark, knew it in a deep place inside of me that had grown unfathomably cold.
    â€œNo. For yours. For the sake of things could get uncomfortable for you if you