Huckleberry Fiend Read Online Free Page B

where that was— Beverly Alexander. But perhaps not so unfortunately— just because I had property stolen from her bedroom didn’t mean I couldn’t talk to her. Perhaps I could say I was from the Bancroft Library and I’d heard she had the manuscript; if she were legitimate, that ought to prod her into sobbing out her tale of woe. If she weren’t, I’d be able to tell from her reaction.
    I liked it. Since she would have no idea who I really was, I wouldn’t be putting myself in any danger. She wouldn’t know where to find me, but if I needed to, I could investigate her to my heart’s content. To make it work, though, I’d probably need a disguise. Nothing too elaborate— maybe I’d wet my hair and slick it down, take off my glasses, stick a pillow under my jacket. Ah— and put something in my cheeks to fill them out. That would alter the shape of my head, face, and body, so that, from a distance, anyway, I probably wouldn’t be recognized right away.
    I felt it absolutely necessary to call on her— she might sob out a tale of woe on the phone, but I was never going to get any idea of what she was like if I didn’t meet her. And I confess to an overwhelming curiosity about what sort of flight attendant would keep a priceless manuscript in her closet. So I wet down my hair and stuck a pillow in my jacket, though, in the end, I couldn’t bring myself to wear cheek fillers.
    Like Sardis and me, Isami and Beverly shared a duplex— only they shared it with the upstairs tenants as well. It was a square stucco building in the Noe Valley, painted a depressing aqua that had caught and held the dirt of ten or a dozen years. I whipped off my glasses as I mounted the stairs, transforming myself into Langhorne Langdon of the Bancroft Library’s Mark Twain Project. (If Bev were a Twain scholar, the name would give me away as a fraud, but that was part of my master plan— she’d grow increasingly upset and give herself away as she caught on that I’d combined Clemens’s middle name with his wife’s maiden name.)
    A female voice answered my knock: “Who is it?”
    “I’m looking for Beverly Alexander.”
    The door opened instantly. Behind it stood a very pretty, very scared-looking young Japanese woman. And behind her stood the last person in the world I’d expected to see, or wanted to see, or for that matter, could in any way tolerate seeing. “Paul Mcdonald. Do come in,” said Inspector Howard Blick of the San Francisco Police Department. “Got a pillow in your jacket?”
    Damn Blick! The most irritating thing about him was that I never understood his insults. Was he accusing me of being fat or letting me know I wasn’t exactly a master of disguise? The former, I thought, and had half a mind to fling open my jacket, letting the pillow fall zanily at his feet. But the thing was that Blick was a homicide inspector; his presence indicated this was no time for hilarity. I said: “Howard. What a surprise.”
    “Get your butt in here.” The next most irritating thing about Blick was that he was unnecessarily bossy, but the worst thing about him— going far beyond mere irritation— was that he had the brains of a ball peen hammer. I’d known him since my days on the police beat, when I could incur his orangutan-like wrath merely by using words he didn’t know in my stories. Arcane stuff like “the” and “as.”
    Not wanting to even a little bit, but knowing better than to try to flee, I got my butt into the hallway. “You a friend of Beverly’s?”
    “A friend of a friend.”
    “You still goin’ out with the gorgeous Kincannon thing?” Kincannon thing? I wanted to hit him, which was the idea, I guess. Due to an unfortunate matter occurring some months earlier, he knew Sardis and he knew a lot better than to call her a “thing.” Especially to me. But I just shrugged noncommittally, proud of myself for not taking the bait. “I mean,” said Blick, “here you are at Bev’s and everything.” He