The Zebra-Striped Hearse Read Online Free Page B

know. It depends.” A troubled expression had takenthe place of the singleness that was his working look. “You don’t want it before August, anyway.”
    “I might.”
    The girl spoke from the head of the stairs in a carrying voice: “Mr. Damis will be out of here by the end of the week.”
    He turned to her with his wry, self-mocking smile. “Is that an order, Missy Colonel?”
    “Of course not, darling. I never give orders. But you know what our plans are.”
    “I know what they’re supposed to be.”
    She came toward him in a flurried rush, her plaid skirt swinging, the way a child moves in on a loved adult. “You can’t mean you’ve changed your mind again?”
    He lowered his head, and shook it. The troubled expression had spread from his eyes to his mouth.
    “Sorry, kid, I have a hard time making decisions, especially now that I’m working. But nothing’s changed.”
    “That’s wonderful. You make me happy.”
    “You’re easily made happy.”
    “You know I love you.”
    She had forgotten me, or didn’t care. She tried to put her arms around him. He pushed her back with the heels of his hands, holding his fingers away from her sweater.
    “Don’t touch me, I’m dirty.”
    “I like you dirty.”
    “Silly kid,” he said without much indulgence.
    “I like you, love you, eat-you-up, you dirty.”
    She leaned toward him, taller in her heels than he was, and kissed him on the mouth. He stood and absorbed her passion, his hands held away from her body. He was looking past her at me. His eyes were wide open and rather sad.

chapter
4
    H E SAID WHEN she released him: “Is there anything else, Mr. Archer?”
    “No. Thanks. I’ll check back with you later.”
    “If you insist.”
    Harriet Blackwell gave me a peculiar look. “Your name is Archer?”
    I acknowledged that it was. She turned her back on me, in a movement that reminded me of her father, and stood looking out over the grey sea. Like a man stepping under a bell jar which muffled sound and feeling, Damis had already returned to his painting.
    I let myself out, wondering if it had been a good idea to put in a personal appearance at the beach house. I found out in a moment that it hadn’t been. Before I reached my car, Harriet came running after me, her heels rat-tat-tatting on the wooden gangway.
    “You came here to spy on us, didn’t you?”
    She took hold of my arm and shook it. Her snakeskin bag fell to the ground between us. I picked it up and handed it to her as a peace offering. She snatched it out of my hand.
    “What are you trying to do to me? What did I ever do to you?”
    “Not a thing, Miss Blackwell. And I’m not trying to do anything to you.”
    “That’s a lie. Father hired you to break it up between me and Burke. I heard him talk to you yesterday, on the telephone.”
    “You don’t have very good security at your house.”
    “I have a right to protect myself, when people connive against me.”
    “Your father thinks he’s protecting you.”
    “Oh, certainly. By trying to destroy the only happiness I’ll ever know or want.” There was a lilt of hysteria in her voice. “Father pretends to love me, but I believe in his secret heart of hearts he wishes me ill. He
wants
me to be lonely and miserable.”
    “That’s not very sensible talk.”
    She shifted her mood abruptly, “But what you’re doing is very sensible, I suppose. Sneaking around other people’s houses pretending to be something different from what you are.”
    “It wasn’t a good idea.”
    “So you admit it.”
    “I should have gone about it in a different way.”
    “You’re
cynical.”
She curled her lips at me youngly. “I don’t know how you can bear to live with yourself.”
    “I was trying to do a job. I bungled it. Let’s start over.”
    “I have nothing to say to you whatever.”
    “I have something to say to you, Miss Blackwell. Are you willing to sit in the car and listen to me?”
    “You can say it right out here.”
    “I