Death of a Pirate King - lanyon Josh - Страница 9

I was with her on that one. I said, “I guess he’s hoping to circumvent a lot of unpleasantness with the police by having people talk to me.” Yeah, hand me my monocle and top hat because I can babble this stuff on cue.

While she pawed through the crown jewels, I took a look around the bedroom. Either she’d had every trace of Porter removed or she was sleeping single. There wasn’t so much as a stray slipper or tie pin. Nor was Porter featured in any of the numerous gold-framed photographs.

Of course, some married people did sleep separately. Or she might have gotten rid of all the painful reminders.

“Well, I don’t see how talking to you is going to save me any unpleasantness with the police. I’ve already had to talk to them once, and I’m sure I’ll have to talk to them again,” Ally said. Which just goes to prove that a woman may be foolish enough to receive you in her boudoir wearing nothing but her slip, and yet not be a total idiot.

So I changed the subject. “How are you holding up? I never got a chance to tell you how sorry I was about Porter.”

She raised her head and gave me a wide-eyed stare. “Can you fasten this for me?”

Where were the sleaze horns when I needed them?

She sauntered over to me and turned her back, indicating that I should fasten the necklace around her throat. I obliged. For all the obvious care and pampering that had been bestowed on Ally, there was something sort of coarse about her, but I couldn’t pin it down. Her neck was a little on the thick side. She smelled of Chanel, which my mother occasionally wears, but somehow Ally made it smell cheap. Her back to me, she said, “I know what Paul thinks. Everyone thinks I didn’t love Porter, that I just married him for the money, but Porter and I --” She shrugged.

As avowals of lasting love go, I’ve sat through more professional presentations.

But I said, “No outsider can understand a relationship between two people.” Hell, sometimes even the people in the relationship couldn’t understand it.

“That’s right,” she said, turning to me in surprise. “People on the outside never understand. They always want to give you advice or tell you off or…something.”

I said, “Maybe everyone hadn’t heard the divorce was off.”

“What divorce?” Her expression changed. “I know where you heard that,” she spat. “That’s totally Paul. I don’t know why, but he has always had it in for me. Maybe he had a thing for Porter.”

I tried to picture that, but the picture wouldn’t come -- thankfully.

She went on, “Yes, Porter and I did discuss divorce, and we realized we loved each other too much to do anything so silly.”

“That’s got to be a comfort to you now,” I said. “I can imagine how painful it would be to have someone you care for die with a lot of unresolved --”

“Yes!” she exclaimed. “That is exactly right!” She gave me an approving lashless gaze. “See, gay guys always understand these things!”

“We’re born with that understanding gene,” I said. “Do you and Porter have kids?”

She swallowed hard at the idea. “No.”

“How long were you married?”

“Four years.”

“Was it your first marriage?”

She smiled at this bit of whimsy. “It was my first real marriage.” She shot me a speculative glance. “You know, if I had to pick someone who I thought might have wanted Porter out of the way -- which I wouldn’t do because that would be totally crass -- I’d suggest you talk to Al January.”

“You’re kidding.” If I’d had a monocle it would have popped right out at that point.

She shook her head. “Paul didn’t tell you that, did he? No. Because he likes Al. And because he needs Al for this movie. Al’s like his Bosley.”

“His what?” I had a sudden vision of Jill, Kelly, and Sabrina gathered around the loudspeaker to receive orders from Charlie.

“Oh, you know. His biographer. Al’s like his personal screenwriter. Paul’s happy to throw me to the wolves, but he doesn’t want anyone looking too closely at Al January.”

I deciphered as best I could. “What would there be to see if someone looked closely?”

Ally got a mulish expression. “Well, for one thing, Porter and Al have never been that close even though they were all part of that whole Langley Hawthorne clique, and for another thing they’ve all been arguing a lot recently. Porter and Al were arguing at the party. Plenty of people heard them, including Paul.”

“I don’t remember that,” I said.

“I don’t think you were there yet. You arrived pretty late.” She smiled. “I noticed you right away.” She gave me an approving look. “I like quiet, polite men. And men who wear Hugo Boss. I was hoping you weren’t gay. Or that you were only half-gay. Like Paul.”

“Uh…sorry,” I said. “It’s pretty much full-time now. The pay’s not great, but the perks…”

She squealed with laughter. “I scared you!” Then she turned grave and dignified. “You know, I am a widow.”

“I know,” I said. And God help the unsuspecting Southland with Ally on the loose once more. I thought Kane had it right: Mrs. Jones wasn’t all that broken up over her older husband’s death. That didn’t mean she’d knocked him off, though. Frankly, the poisoned cocktail seemed a little complicated for Ally. I figured she was more the type to run him over with the Jaguar or clunk him with a marble finial and toss him into the pool out back. “Do you have any idea what your husband and Al January were arguing about?”

She had moved over to the dressing table where she proceeded to put mascara on, tilting her head at an unnatural angle and ogling herself open-mouthed in the three mirrors. Framed there in gilt, she reminded me of a split-image Picasso.

“No.” She formed the word carefully, combing her lashes out. “Business, I suppose.”

“Was business bad enough to kill?”

She shrugged another plump shoulder. “I never listened to Porter when he got going.”

Ah. At last. The secret to a successful marriage.

“January tried to save Porter,” I pointed out. “He was the one who administered CPR.”

“You’ll notice he didn’t save Porter, though,” she pointed right back.

“From the little the police have said, I don’t think anyone could have saved him. It sounds like he got a massive dose of whatever killed him.”

“Heart medication,” she said.

“Did Porter have a heart condition?”

She pumped the mascara wand in the tube. “Nope.”

“Do you?”

I smiled in answer to her indignant look. “See, I do,” I said.

“Oh.” She unbent a fraction. “Really?”

I said, “Can you think of anyone else who might have had a reason to get your husband out of the way?”

She blinked, creating an effect reminiscent of Malcolm McDowell in A Clockwork Orange. “Fuck!” She grabbed tissues and began dabbing away the black dots. When she had wiped away the smears, she recapped the mascara, and placed it neatly back on the tray of cosmetics. “No,” she said flatly, and it took me a second to remember exactly what I had asked her.

“Did Porter have any enemies? Or any problems with anyone besides Al January?”

She shook her head, staring down at the collection of cosmetics.

“Was this a second marriage for Porter? Does he have an ex? Or maybe kids by another marriage?”

She brightened. “Yes. He was married to Marla Vicenza. But they didn’t have any children.” She slanted me a look. “Porter was sterile.”

Too much information. See, this is why I really wasn’t cut out for the amateur sleuth gig. I really didn’t want to know that much about my fellow man.

“How did Porter get on with his first wife?”

“Fine.” She shrugged. “Listen, if Marla was going to kill Porter she’d have done it twenty years ago.” She waved a makeup brush at me and little specks of powder flew through the air. “Now is that it? Because I have to get dressed.”