Rembrandt's Ghost Read Online Free

literature. The man every red-blooded Yankee secretly yearned to be. The
Play-boy
magazine ideal.”
    “Just the sort of guy a red-blooded Yankee girl would loathe and despise,” Finn said with a laugh.
    “Perhaps so,” Pilgrim sighed. “But he was a man of his time and he had an enormous cultural effect. He was your Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett, John Wayne, Huck Finn, and Tom Sawyer all rolled into one. The last great American adventurer, the first great American antihero.” Pilgrim flushed again. “I’ve been lecturing.”
    “Maybe you should have been a teacher after all,” said Finn.
    “Good Lord, what a horrible suggestion!” said Pilgrim. “All those children with runny noses and Gameboys in their satchels. I’d go mad!” He stood up. “I’m afraid I’ve taken up too much of your time, Miss Ryan. I’m terribly sorry.”
    “It was a pleasure, Mr. Pilgrim, the high point of my day, to be honest.” She stood and handed him his rewrapped painting. They shook hands. His grip was warm and strong without being overly masculine. He had calluses. These hands worked for a living. She liked that. She liked Billy Pilgrim. She wondered if it would frighten him off to ask him out for a drink or something. She’d never been very good at that kind of thing.
    “Thank you for your time, Miss Ryan. You’ve been most kind.” He stood there looking a little adolescent and awkward.
    “No problem, really. And it’s Finn. Miss Ryan sounds like a kindergarten teacher.”
    “You could teach the little creatures all about
Menheer
Jan Steen,” said Billy.
    “And then wipe their runny noses.”
    “Gad.” He looked appropriately horrified and then smiled, his face lighting up and his eyes twinkling.
    “Off to the
Busted Flush
?” She was groping now, and beginning to feel like an idiot.
    “Not quite yet. I’ve a flat in town. Appointment in the City tomorrow. Solicitors and such. I’ve been trying to sell a little seaside property of mine in Cornwall.” First the painting, now a house. It sounded as though he was going somewhere.
    “Cottage?” Finn asked.
    Billy nodded. “Something like that.”
    “Going on vacation?”
    “I thought I’d take a bit of a cruise.”
    “Away from the rain?”
    “Hopefully.”
    “Any particular destination?”
    “I haven’t given it much thought.”
    “What would Travis McGee do under the circumstances?”
    “Make himself a Boodles martini and talk to Meyer about it.”
    “Meyer?”
    “His philosophical friend a few slips over at Bahia del Mar. He had a boat called the
John Maynard Keynes
.”
    “He must have been an economist.”
    “Something like that. It’s never really made clear in the books.”
    “A Wall Street type?”
    “Yes, a retired one.”
    Now they’d really reached the end of the conversation.
    “Well…” he said.
    “Well…” she answered. “It was great fun meeting you. Perhaps I’ll see you again.” Last chance. If he didn’t pick up the hint it would all end right here, a road not traveled at all.
    “I do hope so.” A polite smile, a little shy, and then he turned and he was gone. Finn dropped back into her chair. The English Travis Magee had just ridden off into the rainy sunset. To top things off Ronnie appeared in her office doorway ten minutes later. He looked like her grade school nerd friend Arthur Beandocker having one of his asthma attacks. His face was tomato red above the knot of his expensive tie, his eyes were bulging, and a vein on his temple was throbbing like a kettledrum.
    “His Grace was here and I wasn’t informed.” His voice was as choked as the look on his face.
    Finn stared. “Who?”
    “His Grace, the duke, of course!”
    Finn had a sudden image of Ronnie greeting John Wayne at the entrance to Mason-Godwin. “There hasn’t been any duke here.”
    “Doris sent someone to you named William Pilgrim, correct?”
    “Billy. A boat bum according to him.”
    “Billy, as you call him,” said Ronnie with a