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Good thing for ela wise on where I&039;d gotten to; in fact, I wanted her to knoas keeping Opal co up another face-to-face talk, and I could put this whole circus to bed in a few hours and go back to my typewriter
I shut off the radio to better hear the other side of the conversation, but apparently Angela was as fast at giving orders as she was at ain it was to find Opal in the process of drawing a gun out of her purse She aimed it square at me, one-handed, as she held the receiver in the other My own hands slightly raised with the pal to shoot A dozen of her fast heartbeats went by with neither of us
"You kno to use that?" I finally asked It was a short-barreled 22 revolver, apparently double action since she didn&039;t bother to cock it, one of the easiest guns in the world to use Just aier like kids do when they play cops and robbers; it wouldn&039;t havenoise of the shot would go unnoticed or ignored in this kind of joint The bullet ht h confidence in herany quick et the drop on her, but decided to let things play the to shoot ot hiela, her voice thin through the wires "Don&039;t let hirab"
Opal set the receiver down, backed off a few paces, and told ela hadn&039;t told her to search me; I&039;d lifted a 38 off Tinny at the house and tucked it into ht, but didn&039;t seeto like Opal in spite of her associates, so I obliged her and said hello into the phone
"Fleela made it more of a demand than a question She sounded pretty fed up
"None other, Miss Paco"
"You&039;re getting to be a pain in the butt"
"I do er on Opal and I&039;ll skin you alive with a dull knife"
"She&039;s safe Besides, with that gun on ave elasound in response "What do you want?"
"Just to finish our conversation"
"You&039;ve got a hell of a nerve after leading the cops in and breaking upto do with me"
"I don&039;t believe you"
"If I&039;d been with the cops, then I&039;d have had Opal down at the local station house answering a lot of questions right now, not sitting in this duether I&039; Frankie Paco&039;s little girl has been up to for the last few days"
"You-" She broke off into rapid, and probably very rude, Italian The connection faded, followed by a sharp and loud clunking sound My guess was she&039;d sla hard The lady had a short fuse tonight
"Hello?" I said patiently, eyes toward the ceiling "Hello-hello?"
After a fewin the background, she caain
"What do you want?" She still sounded mad, but was in control of herself
"To continue the little talk ere having before all hell broke loose"
"So talk"
Fine and dandy with me, but you can&039;t hypnotize people over the phone I can&039;t, anyway "Set up aplace, anywhere you like, and I&039;ll be there Or you can cooing to let ht"
"Make the ti here and not too happy about things She&039;s under the i to take care of her
You wouldn&039;t want disillusionment to set in, would you? It&039;d be very easy for so like that to happen in an outhouse like this"
"You say one word-"
"I know, the dull-knife routine So put so We&039;ll be waiting for you"
I hung up
Opal squawked and for a second I thought she&039;d shoot, not in anger but frootnoises
"What&039;d you do that for?"
"Seeood idea at the time I can see it was rude of ela?"
"I need to knohat she wants me to do"
"Keep me covered just like this, but I&039;d appreciate it if you didn&039;t shoot until after your boss and I have had our talk"
No ain I&039;d expected Angela to call back with rabbed the phone up and they talked close I didn&039;t let on I could hear both sides The upshot was no surprise: She wanted Opal to sit tight until a couple of her boys came around for us
"What about the car?" Opal asked
"One of theela ?"
"Yeah, what?"
"I-I sort of accidentally told him about the money at the roadhouse"
"You what?"
"I didn&039;t ela
Opal got nervous "I&039;m sorry, it was an accident, please don&039;t be mad at me"
"Okay, okay, cal her lower lip "It was an accident"
"Yeah, yeah"
"He was asking a lot of questions and it just caet hurt"
"I&039;ll just bet he did Okay, don&039;t worry about it I&039;ll take: care of it for you Just don&039;t say anything to anyone else"
"I won&039;t, I promise"
"And make sure he keeps shut about it, too"
Daet she&039;d ela had a whole new reason to kill ot Opal to feeling better, then Angela asked for ela
"So you know about Kyler&039;s little nest egg?" she asked sweetly
"Not nearly enough Your girl shut up before she got too detailed"
"Uh-huh, but the da to run out to chase down buried treasure?
She&039;s got a gun on et away from her if you really wanted to"
"But I don&039;t want to We need to talk"
"That&039;s what you keep saying I want to knohy What&039;s so important that you want to take such a risk?"
"No risk, Miss Paco," I hedged, trying to think of so that would hold her attention The truth wouldn&039;t do here
"Well?"
The so I needed juo to work for you"
Silence, then a bark of laughter "You what?"
"Chaven&039;s dead, a lot of your boys were probably arrested tonight, Deiter, Chick, and Tinny ain&039;t coone with the booze ainst you, I&039;et"
She sputtered, actually sputtered "Like hell I-"
"Especially since Sean Sullivan&039;s co into town to take over Kyler&039;s spot"
That completely shut her up for a moment "How do you know about hiue with a lady?"
"I don&039;t believe you," she repeated, but her tone didn&039;t go along with her words
She had some doubts, and plenty of them
"Your loss"
"Why would you want to work for ure if you&039;d really been trying, I&039;d be dead by now" It wouldn&039;t hurt to throw a little flattery at her, but it had to be the right kind Telling her she had beautiful eyes wouldn&039;t work in this situation
"You&039;re right on that," she said, sounding wanner
"But maybe after your boys haul me around to see you, I can convince you of ood faith I won&039;t rand to them on the trip over"
"Or I can just have theet there before you even open yourto take that chance," I said dryly, trying to imitate Escott He would have done it better with his accent, but I wasn&039;t half-bad I ot balls"
"And they&039;re at your service"
Another laugh "Don&039;t get fresh My boys will be there in about half an hour"
This ti up I didn&039;tto do," I told Opal, and gestured at the silent radio
"Sure you don&039;t want to change yourto hire you?" She looked like she&039;d just bit a bad lemon
"With any luck"
"I don&039;t believe it"
"The boss lady said about the sa, but she&039;ll come around"
"I think it stinks Besides, if it&039;s so bad for ela, why is it okay for you to want to work for her?"
Oops Daood question Not one I could answer, either As I had Opal&039;s full attention, it seeet that Don&039;t even bother to think about it Okay?" The bad-lemon look went away as I concentrated on her
"Okay"
Funny thing, or maybe it wasn&039;t so funny, but I didn&039;t have the least te the eye on her It would have been about as exciting as kissing one of my sisters Just as well for both of us, I suppose "Why don&039;t you go to the other rooht here Take your ti I do Just put the gun down It&039;ll be here when you get back"
"Okay," she said, her voice flatter than usual She left the gun on a table and went into the bedroo Shoe Coldfield&039;s nu,on?" he wanted to know
"I got a little sidetracked Hasn&039;t Charles checked in? I thought that movie would be done by now"
"Yeah, he called from the theater He&039;ll be back soon, but you-"
"I&039; out a truce with Angela-"
"A truce? With her?"
"-then the cops raided the joint" I filled hiument He didn&039;t want to believe me either, and I couldn&039;t blahts I&039;d have to sit him down and tell him some important details aboutto persuade his done Of course, if it all worked out the way I wanted in the next few hours, I wouldn&039;t have to, since Escott and I wouldn&039;t need his help and protection anyot her to call off the hit on him"
"You must be a miracle worker, kid"
"I didn&039;t say it was easy, but we should all be back to nor normal about this shit and don&039;t try to tellhe couldn&039;t take a slug at ets back and tell hiirlfriend a call for me so she won&039;t worry so ela to-"
"Char ith her"
His co, I had to hold the receiver away from my ear
"I wouldn&039;t worry about it," I said when he paused for breath "I gotta go now, sounds like Opal&039;s co back" Which wasn&039;t strictly true, but why take chances? I hung up and paced around, shutting and locking the entry door alht
Opal caain, and resu at me If she&039;d powdered her nose I couldn&039;t tell I sketched a wave at her and turned the radio back on I was feeling pretty day The dance , and I made a few turns with an invisible partner
"You&039;re nuts," said Opal, eyeing ive it a try" I turned again and tried a dip
"Angela told me to keep you covered"
"Hey, we&039;re practically business partners now, so all that&039;s off"
"Not until Angela tellsood time in her life I fixed her with another look "Relax, Opal Put the gun down and come take a dance lesson"
She blinked, then put the revolver back on the table As a subject for suggestion, she was a drea of her was very much in line hat she really wanted She came over and I waited until the blankness in her expression cleared
"It&039;s easier than it looks," I said "I&039;ll just hold this hand, then you put the other one here, and you start off counting one-two-three-four, one-two-three-four"
Her feet seealoshes still on her shoes Good grief, ere both still in our coats and hats I decided to ignore them and lue cahtly loose; she actually followeddown the whole ti, girl," I said after a eh to look at one in an instant The muscles of her face probably weren&039;t used to such acrobatics Maybe I rong and it was a only twitch of concentration or maybe a wince of pain, but I hadn&039;t stepped on her toe or kicked her shin
I kept counting She got confused, so I slowed down, and told her she was doing fine, just relax and listen to the music She couldn&039;t seeically turn into a poor er, but I could tell she was really trying I didn&039;t repeat the hypnosis stuff; there are sos in life that it just won&039;t work on and this was one of the to dance, it would be on her own
The song ended and I stepped back and made a little bow "You ain&039;t half-bad, ma&039;am"
"I was terrible," she stated "I watched the dancers at the studio I know"
"Ahh, give yourself a week and you&039;ll be dancing circles around &039;eht? People good at nureat dancers"
"They do?"
Well, I didn&039;t know for certain, but assured her of the truth of it "Hey, they&039;re playing a waltz, and that&039;s even easier Hand here and here, one-two-three, one-two-three" More clumsy steps from her, but I&039;d been just the same years back My mom, God bless her, made me take lessons when I&039;d been in short pants I&039;d hated dancing then and had gotten into fights about it with soed reat way to spend tie; mine was remarkably short-lived
"Oh! I&039;m sorry!" She landed square on one of ot her to the end of it without either of us crashing to the floor A coal co the music "There, we&039;re not exactly Vernon and Irene Castle, but we could do okay at the Stardust Ballroom"
"We could?" she sounded doubtful
"Well maybe with a little more practice"
She nodded Honesty was the best policy with her Then her face twitched again
No, it was a definite ss for her, but I chose not to comment about it She&039;d smiled to herself, after all, and it seemed better to wait until she was ready to share before I intruded any opinions on her
"Did you like it?" I asked
"I guess so"
She was usually uess?"
"I my"
"What?"
Her face was all screwed up until she finally ed to blurt it out "My-my aunt told me if I danced with boys I&039;d have a baby"
I was very careful not to laugh She&039;d flushed deep red at this confession "Well, one thing can lead to another and maybe it could happen, but if all you do is dance, then you don&039;t have to worry about having babies What other bright things did your aunt tell you?"
She shrugged, eyes down
"Your aunt raise you?"
"Yes She didn&039;t like h time with your family?"
"I don&039;t want to talk about the me about the last book you read?"
"Why?"
"To fill the tiet here I know I&039;, but it&039;s your turn to talk"
A suspicious look "Is that another joke?"
"A half-assed one, but yes" I dropped into the chair by the radio, throwing one leg over the thinly cushioned arret it Instead of a popular novel, she&039;d last pored over soe cure for insomnia that had to do with mathematics For ten minutes she nearly quoted chapter and verse to me of the whole damned volume while I tried to make sense of it and look interested I wanted to keep up the encourageet much, but everya hand "What are you doing here? Why aren&039;t you at soot a blank look for my question, and she wasn&039;t under my influence "Because I couldn&039;t pass the entry exaet this lish, foreign languages, history, I don&039;t know that stuff
Just numbers"
"Pretty one-sided"
"It stinks"
"Yeah, but it&039;s fixable Learning stuff just takes practice, like dancing or playing the piano Ever learn piano?"
"No"