Walking the Labyrinth Read Online Free

front legs; he turned and pushed it toward the couch. “Sit down.”
    Molly took an old wooden office chair in front of his desk. He sat heavily on the red and gold couch. “Allalie, is it?” he said. “Funny what you remember. I couldn’t tell you what I had for breakfast this morning but I can see those people as if it was yesterday. You look a little like them, come to think of it. ’Cept you don’t have the gap teeth.”
    Molly tried not to show her surprise. Her aunt had insisted on braces to correct her teeth. “Fentrice Allalie is my great-aunt,” she said.
    He nodded. “That explains it. You going to disappear now?”
    “What?”
    “Your great-aunt—she was a tricky one. She made me think she was Thorne, or Thorne made me think she was her—I never did get them straightened out. They gave me the best champagne of my life that night, and you know what? The next day I stopped drinking for good. Thirteen years of Prohibition didn’t do it, but they did. I’m getting thirsty just thinking about that champagne. Do you want a soda?”
    “Sure. I’ll get it if you like.”
    “No you don’t, missy. I can still take care of myself.” He held on to the walker and pulled himself laboriously to his feet, then moved to the kitchen.
    A minute later he came back. The sodas rested on a tray attached to the top of the walker. “Give you a piece of advice, if you like,” Dodd said. “Don’t get old.”
    Molly laughed. Dodd didn’t; perhaps it hadn’t been a joke. “What do you want to know about the Allalies? Writing a family history?”
    “Something like that. What do you remember about them?”
    “You read the article?” he asked. Molly nodded. “Did you see anything strange about it?”
    She shook her head.
    “It was all bullshit—pardon my French.” He grinned. Molly said nothing, waiting for him to go on. “My editor didn’t notice either, luckily. I practically made the whole thing up.”
    “Why?”
    “Why?” He took a sip of his soda. “You sure you’re not going to disappear? I went backstage to the trap room after the performance, and they gave me the runaround. No answers to my questions, lots of confusion …” He shook his head. “Fireworks, and music, and people dancing and laughing … I can still hear that damn song they sang. Couple years after the interview I heard it at a club and nearly went crazy. ‘Got Everything,’ by King Oliver.” He looked at her shrewdly. “That name means nothing to you, does it?”
    She shook her head.
    “I don’t remember the end of the interview. I woke up on the trolley going home. The next day I had to write something. My notebook was blank—all the questions I’d planned to ask and the notes I’d taken were gone. They’d probably torn the pages out.”
    Molly nodded, encouraging him to continue.
    “Never took a drink again,” Dodd said. He sipped at his soda. “That Fentrice. Is she still alive?”
    “Yes. She raised me.”
    “That must have been something.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “She was a wild one. Smoking in public, wearing scanty clothing. Did you know there was a room at the Paramount where women would go to smoke, so the men wouldn’t see them? I got the feeling there was nothing Fentrice wouldn’t do.”
    “Actually she’s very staid. She gardens, plays bridge. She doesn’t smoke at all.”
    “Doesn’t she? Hell, I shouldn’t be surprised. What’s one more disguise to that family?”
    “Disguise?”
    “That’s what I remember from that night. The show didn’t end when they left the stage. They put on another show just for me, for an audience of one. And your aunt did the same for you.”
    “Why would she do that?”
    “Why did they do anything? Why did they take my notes? I could have given them damn good publicity.”
    “I think I know my aunt better than you do.”
    “I don’t think anyone knew that woman. Well, maybe her family did.”
    “I’m her family.”
    “Right.” He drank. “And