The Dark and Deadly Pool Read Online Free Page A

Bandini had celebrated her seventieth birthday last May. Mrs. Bandini’s white hair curled around her face like the frame around a portrait. She read all the latest exercise books and tried to look like the models on the book jackets. Once she even wore striped red-and-green leg warmers with her blue bathing suit. On a scale of one to ten she would have got a ten for trying, but her figure was kind of a minus five. She was really nice. Her smile was always a bright-red gleam across the room, and I liked to talk to her.
    Her friend, Mrs. Opal Larabee, was five years younger than Mrs. Bandini. Mrs. Larabee pointedly mentioned this soon after I met the two women. Mrs. Bandini just smiled and added that Mrs. Larabee was one up on her there, and was also one up on her where weight was concerned, being fifteen pounds heavier. Mrs. Larabee smiled and said something about being an inch and three quarters taller, and I left in a hurry, not wanting to hear the rest.
    Mr. Asmir Kamara was at the club, as usual. I twisted toglance through the wide glass window wall that divided the office from the pool area and saw his shining bald head leading the way back and forth in a straight path from one end of the pool to the other. His daily routine. As usual, his terry-cloth robe was folded neatly over the back of a chair, and his thongs were placed side by side under the chair. Mr. Kamara, a wealthy retiree who lived at the Ridley Hotel, seemed to speak only enough English to imperiously insult all the male employees of the hotel and extravagantly flatter all the female employees.
    “Watch out for that old buzzard,” Tina had told me. “In his country they have some funny ideas about women. If he pesters you, give me a call and I’ll come running.”
    Art Mart was more blunt. “He’ll probably ask you to go away with him for a weekend. So far he’s tried it with all the women who work in the hotel. When you turn him down, remember he’s a guest of the Ridley and go easy.”
    Mr. Kamara introduced himself to me on my first day at work. The next afternoon, when he arrived at the club, wearing a terry-cloth robe over his bathing trunks, he brought me a bunch of blue-dyed carnations and a bag of apples. “You will drive to New Orleans with me this weekend?” he asked.
    I tried to remember the clever retort I had planned to answer, but all that came out was “No.”
    He just shrugged. “Maybe later.”
    “No,” I said.
    He seemed to hesitate, then shoved the flowers and bag of apples at me. “Keep anyway,” he said, and flashed an expensive porcelain smile.
    “No, thanks,” I said.
    “Yes, thanks,” he said firmly, put them on my desk, and disappeared into the men’s dressing room to lock hisroom key and wallet in his locker. He returned in a few minutes, going straight through the office to his favorite, somewhat secluded, table and chair, where he was joined by a club member named C. L. Jones.
    Mr. Jones, who was pale and long and skinny, had what my PE teacher called sloppy posture. His shoulders were so rounded he looked like the top of a question mark. He was as unusual as Mr. Kamara. Tina told me that Mr. Jones came every day to the club, but he rarely went swimming and never stayed very long. Sometimes he rode the exercise bike, but mostly he chatted awhile with Mr. Kamara and left. His membership seemed like a waste of money.
    Mrs. Bandini’s arms rippled up and down in some kind of a signal to me, so I put the box of photo-ID cards back in the desk, left the office, and walked over to where she and Mrs. Larabee were ensconced in their deck chairs with cups of coffee.
    “Such a nice girl,” Mrs. Bandini said, and gleamed at me. “I would like to have a granddaughter like you, Mary Elizabeth.”
    “You would like to have a granddaughter, period,” Mrs. Larabee said, “although there’s small chance of that.”
    Mrs. Bandini looked pained. “I have two grandsons, who are a constant joy, as you well know, and if