Read Online Rainbow's End by Martha Grimes - Free Book Online Page B

it’s not that strong.” Sly minced his way down the bar again to give Melrose and Trueblood refills.
    â€œTo tell the truth,” said Miss Fludd, “a volcano would make a change.” The long sigh she exhaled seemed to release something into the room. “Wouldn’t it be nice to see, oh, Mount St. Helens?” Then she slid from her stool, and, carrying her half-pint of strangely orangish beer, made her difficult way across the room, her object being, apparently, to view the posters which lined the walls, as if Sly’s collection were paintings in a gallery.
    Miss Fludd.
    Melrose said the name to himself as he picked up his own drink and moved to stand beside her. “Miss Fludd,” he said, then, aloud.
    â€œHello,” she said, scarcely turning her gaze from the poster. It was an advertisement for The Sheltering Sky , one of the newer ones in the Sly expo of desert wastes; one dark form more or less superimposed on another in dark and windblown garments. She studied it for a moment, as did Melrose. She moved on to another, Melrose following her in her silent circuit of the film posters. There must have been seven or eight big posters, new and old, most of them pictures of a desert, or at least having the suggestion of being stranded near one.
    Miss Fludd said she really liked it here in the Blue Parrot. It was so exotic.
    Melrose was astonished. He blushed deeply, and was glad for the dimness of the lighting, which simulated desert nights rather than days. Now they were standing in front of A Passage to India. The tiny figure of Peggy Ashcroft stood atop a howdah at the head of a long procession of camels, early evening sun turning the acres of sand amber.
    She loved Peggy Ashcroft, she said. Had loved, she corrected herself. Now she was dead.
    Beside that poster was the one of Lawrence in his flowing white garments, walking along a procession of dark boxcars. Melrose recalled Jury’s speaking of the two posters, hanging side by side, how the camel train in the one and the railway train, with all of its boxcars, in the other, moved toward one another, yet were destined never to meet. Jury had said that. Melrose wondered if he himself had grown cynical or simply lacked imagination, looking at the posters, looking out over the room (trying to see it through her eyes). He told her of Jury’s comment.
    She said that he must be a romantic man. Sipping her beer, looking from one picture to another, she added, “And a disappointed one.”
    Melrose thought about that for a moment.
    Standing in front of the Casablanca poster, she asked him, “Have you ever been to Paris?”
    He was, again, astonished. Hadn’t everyone ? But he didn’t, of course, say that. Paris, to her, must have been as inaccessible as Algiers. Travelling for her was very difficult. Ruefully, she indicated her leg, hidden by the long skirt of the dove-gray dress.
    â€œÂ â€˜We’ll always have Paris,’ ” she quoted from the film. She sighed. “Isn’t that what they said? ‘We’ll always have Paris.’ ”
    He realized that one of the disarming qualities about her was her directness—her thoughts, either well- or ill-formed, right away becamewords, as if there were no time to lose. And Melrose thought with a bit of a shock that rarely did he say what he was thinking. It had nothing to do with honesty or dishonesty; it was that his thoughts (and wasn’t it this way with most people?) remained just that—thoughts, inarticulated.
    They completed their turn around the room, a shabby old poster of The Desert Song , and Rudolph Valentino, and a smoky scene of dancing girls scattering veils. They returned to the bar, where she put down the dregs of her Tangier, said hello to Trueblood (smoking one of his shocking-pink cigarettes), and said she had to go.
    Melrose helped her on with her coat and walked outside with her.
    Standing by the dry fountain,