Read Online Mark Schweizer - Liturgical 12 - The Cantor Wore Crinolines by Mark Schweizer - Free Book Online Page B

maybe that was the pretentiousness of youth. I probably enjoyed Gesualdo the way the Blue Hill Bookworms enjoyed reading Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann.
     
    * * *
     
    “My name is Anne Dante. I need a detective,” she blarbled, in a voice halfway between warbling and blubbering. She could have been blubbleing though. I wasn’t sure. I was never sure with these mezzos. Most of them were as easy as opening a jar of pickles, not one closed so tight that a woman would get a hernia trying to open it, although I’ve never heard about a woman this happened to, I guess it could, but doctors don’t ask them to cough so how would they know, but one already opened and the lid left slightly askew so that the pickle flavor gets all into the left over lasagna even though you put it in one of those plastic containers, which is also easy, but not as easy as most mezzos.
    “I need a detective,” she belugled again, in case anyone had forgotten where we were in the narrative since the previous sentence was relatively long, but contained a certain literary device called “adumbrating,” which is a vague foreshadowing of events to come and is, if not actually relevant, at least apropos to the plot in an upcoming chapter that the reader hasn’t gotten to yet. “I need someone I can trust.”
    Pedro took a swig of his drink, swished it around in his mouth, made a face like an Episcopal priest who’d been slipped a three-dollar wine during communion, then gulped it down, and went straight for an aphorism.
    “Life is short.”
    Suddenly a shot rang out.
     
    * * *
     
    The doorbell rang, then I heard the kitchen door open and Pete call out, “You home?”
    “In the living room,” I called back. “Grab a couple of beers out of the fridge, will you?”
    I tossed the empty bottle into the wastebasket on top of quite a few sheets of unbegun detective stories. Then I pulled my current opus out of the typewriter, placed it in a manilla folder, and slipped it into the top drawer of the desk. I clicked off the lamp and stood up just as Pete came in.
    “What in God’s name is that caterwauling coming from the stereo?” Pete said.
    “Just … nothing,” I said, deciding to turn it off and put on some Leon Redbone, my favorite jazz and blues singer. It took me about a minute to switch the music over and by the time I was finished, Pete had settled himself onto the sofa, drunk half of his beer, and looked to be almost asleep.
    “Did you ever read Magic Mountain when you were in college?” I asked.
    “I sure visited it a few times,” Pete answered with a grin. “It was the ’70s.”
    “Thomas Mann,” I said.
    “I know who wrote it,” said Pete. “I read it in some English class. Part of it anyway. I was supposed to read the whole thing and write a paper. German existentialism. I’m pretty sure it was the worst book I never finished.”
    “Full of symbolism and deep meaning?”
    “Full of something,” said Pete, taking another draw on his bottle. “Are you struggling with the meaning of art and of life again?”
    “Always,” I said. “Perhaps I shall find it by drinking another beer.”
    “Couldn’t hurt,” said Pete. “You know, if you ever reach total artistic enlightenment while drinking beer, I’ll bet it comes shooting out your nose.”
    “Probably,” I agreed. “You want one of these cigars?”
    “Nah. I’m trying to cut down. No cigars after nine. That’s my new rule.”
    “Why the late visit? What’s up?”
    “Well, Cynthia told me that Meg was staying with her mom tonight, and then we heard over at the Slab that you’d found three dead bodies inside the three houses that were auctioned yesterday. All murdered.”
    CNN had nothing on the St. Germaine grapevine. “You came to check on my well being?” I asked.
    “Nah,” said Pete. “Cynthia told me to come out and see what was going on. She’s the mayor, you know.”
    “Yep. And you are her paramour.”
    “The power behind the throne,” said