Read Online Hard Case Crime: Honey in His Mouth by Lester Dent - Free Book Online

breath, Mr. Hassam reflected, and he got up and opened the window. He stood there looking into the Avenida del Libertador General San Martin. It surprised him to see several thousand persons gathered in the street. He could not think what the occasion might be. He could see that the crowd was made up largely of shirtless ones, but for the life of him he could not recall why thousands of the fools should be down there in the street at ten o’clock this morning. He recalled that somewhere in his desk there was a silly calendar made up by some favor-currying concern which showed all the holidays dedicated to El Presidente and his late wife. He found the calendar and looked at it. Today was La Señora De La Esperanza day, the Lady of Hope Day, which was what the shirtless ones worshipfully called the late wife. So that was it.
    Mr. Hassam put away the calendar. He wondered how the project of making a Saint out of La Señora De La Esperanza was coming along. El Presidente had ordered the Catholics to make his late wife a Saint about a month ago. The Catholic faith was dominant in the country, and the church officials did not like the Saint project. You could not blame them, for she had been a real bitch. It was rumored that El Presidente had personally telephoned the Pope in Rome and told him the Saint thing had to go through right away. Mr. Hassam could imagine what a hit that made with the Pope. All those teenage girls he was getting must be giving the bastard a God complex for real, thought Mr. Hassam. If he stirred up all the Catholics, he was opening a hornet nest, and he should have enough sense left to know it.
    The way the crowd was starting to gather, there would probably be fifty thousand of them under the lecher’s balcony by two o’clock, the hour he usually put in his appearance.
    Where was Kirksville, Missouri, anyway? In the U.S.A. obviously, since that was where the cablegram had originated. Mr. Hassam was somewhat puzzled as to which was the town and which was the province, and the general location. He consulted an atlas. Missouri, he found, was a province in the central U.S.A., and Kirksville was a small city.
    He still felt frightened. Fear was like having a drink of a strong liquor, vodka or slivovitz or bourbon whiskey, in the way it put a false feeling into a man, and the sensation did not leave the system immediately.
    The telephone rang. Mr. Hassam swung about to face the instrument, his nerves tightening. He was reluctant to pick it up, but he felt he must do so.
    “Who? Señorita Muirz? Put her on, of course.” It was bad business when a man grew frightened at a telephone call, he reflected. “Ah, Miss Muirz. A profound pleasure.”
    “I plan to be in your office at two o’clock, Hassam.”
    She sounds high-handed, he thought. He was irritated. High-handedness must be a disease they caught in bed with that bastard. Only last week when he was visiting El Presidente’s summer residence in Olivos, a teenage flip had ordered Mr. Hassam about as though he were a peon, and he had not forgotten.
    His voice held its composure. “May I suggest, Miss Muirz, perhaps twelve-thirty would be best for you to come. It is Our Lady of Hope day. The street is already filling with the worshippers.”
    She laughed. “Very well. Twelve-thirty. Be there. Goodbye.”
    That was a very nasty little laugh she had given, and he wondered what the Our Lady of Hope worshippers would do if they heard her give it. Tear her limb from limb, he supposed, particularly if they knew she had been El Presidente’s mistress while his wife was living.
    He had better be careful himself, he thought. Flor Muirz was a woman as cold-blooded and calculating as a shark, and she and Doctor Englaster and Mr. Hassam were involved in some promising plans—very promising plans if they were not found out first.
    He started walking rapidly around his office. Then he noticed what he was doing. Nerves. He decided to go out for an early lunch. He put