Read Online Girl Watcher's Funeral by Hugh Pentecost - Free Book Online

waiting for him to die. He had to trust them, so he gave them no reason to be in a hurry.”
    â€œHow did Nikos feel about Jan’s outside sex life?” I asked. “With someone like Mike Faraday, for instance?”
    Rosey gave me a wry smile. “You weren’t wasting your time in there, Haskell.”
    â€œIt’s a thing, isn’t it?” I said, still feeling unaccountably angry about it.
    â€œIt’s a thing, according to the grapevine,” Rosey said.
    â€œDoesn’t Mrs. Faraday object?” Chambrun asked.
    â€œMike Faraday is so rich it would take a lot for Dodo to make trouble. She’s too comfortable the way things are. And,” Rosey said, her smile turning hard, “she’s free to do what she likes with her life.”
    â€œI find the New World rather indigestible,” Chambrun said. His eyes were almost hidden behind their hooded lids. “It’s been very pleasant talking to you, Miss Lewis, but you haven’t come to the point.”
    â€œPoint?” she said.
    â€œYou obviously want something from me in return for not producing headlines for tomorrow morning’s papers.”
    Rosey threw back her head and laughed. “I wouldn’t like to be married to you, Chambrun,” she said. “I don’t like having my mind read, and I don’t particularly like this Turkish coffee.”
    â€œYou want a hot line to the center of things,” Chambrun said.
    â€œIt seems fair, doesn’t it?”
    â€œSince they’re all talking about it, the story will surely leak,” Chambrun said.
    â€œBut not what’s being done about it,” Rosey said. “Not the truth about the pills. Your only weapon at this point is that you know what really happened. I’ll hold it back, because I loved Nikos in my fashion, provided I get it in time for a beat when you’re ready to talk.”
    â€œIt seems little enough to offer you for your silence, which we very much need at the moment, Miss Lewis. It’s a deal. But cooperation is a two-way street. You’re going to be a part of the fashion circus for the next two days. Can we count on you to eavesdrop and pass along anything that might leave us a little less paralyzed?”
    â€œIf I think it will help Nikos even his score,” Rosey said.
    Chambrun stood up. “My cautious secretary will be told you are to be passed through to me any time you ask, Miss Lewis. You’re going back to the nineteenth-floor brawl now?”
    â€œIt seems the sensible thing to do.”
    â€œMark, take Miss Lewis upstairs, and then come back here, please.”
    Rosey and I went down the corridor to the elevators.
    â€œDoes he always eat dinner in such lonely grandeur?” she asked as we waited.
    â€œRarely,” I said. “Tonight he was expecting me—it seems.”
    â€œHow do you stand it—having him one step ahead of you all the time?”
    â€œMostly it’s rather comforting,” I said.
    The elevator door opened noiselessly.
    â€œYou don’t have to come up with me, Haskell,” Rosey said. “I’m a big girl, you know. Thanks for not being stuffy.”
    The tawny hair glittered in the light from the car ceiling, and she waved at me as the door closed. I watched the little lighted arrow over the door clicking off the floors toward 19 . …
    When I got back to the office, Jacques had cleared away the dinner service and Chambrun was sitting at his desk, slumped down in his chair, his eyes hidden in their deep pouches.
    â€œYou did the right thing, bringing her here, Mark,” he said, exhaling a cloud of pale blue smoke, “but I’m damned if I know whether it’s doing us much good to keep our small secret if everyone suspects there was something fishy about Nikos’s death.”
    â€œThe killer will think we’re looking for evidence of poison, when actually we’re looking for something