Dark Blonde Read Online Free PDF

passed through her eyes and left them sadder and empty again, fixed upon her glass. Her magnet eyes did most of the work for her face. They were easy to stare at and easy to compliment. So I did.
    “You have interesting eyes, Mrs. Gateswood, it should be illegal to have eyes that large, even though it makes them easier to read. I can see why you won Miss Midwest. Maybe those gold flecks dancing around in slate-blue pools said the right things to the judges. Why do I get the idea you’re not leveling with me, leaving things out?”
    Julia kept sipping and peering at me over her glass. Her smirk stiffened. “As you say, it’s the way a private investigator often feels. But let’s skip that, also as you say. You don’t need to cozy up to me. I’m having a drink and hiring you, this isn’t a date. I’m a married woman. I’ve given you the basic information you need to get started. If you need more please call me at my private number. If you get a lead on Gail, call me at any hour. Any hour.”
    “You left out the ‘happily’ that women usually include when they tell a man they’re married. Of course it can be pro forma whether happy or not, but it’s telling when left out.”
    She glared at me then relaxed back against the cushions, threw the rest of her shot between those full red lips, gave out a little chirp of a laugh and said evenly, again in that breathless way, “We each got what we wanted. I’m not complaining.” There was more forming in that head of hers and I waited for it but it didn’t come. I had a feeling under the right circumstances it would. I had another feeling that I’d like it when it did.
    “I’d like to get a key to Gail’s place and look around if you don’t mind. The five hundred will cover things for ten days. If I locate your sister before then, I’ll expect the balance as a bonus. If she shows on her own I’ll deduct fifty per day. Expenses extra. You’ll get an itemized list of those. Usually, this is where I qualify a client to see how they expect to pay, see if they can pay, not everyone can. I guess we can skip that part. A private investigator hollering for payment right before an election isn’t the sort of press I’d guess you’d want. I already know enough about your family to fill a few pages in the National Enquirer.”
    “There’s no need to insult me Mister Angel, or to threaten me. What’s more, I don’t appreciate your tone. This is strictly business.” She dug in her handbag, pulled out a key ring, snapped off one key and handed it to me, all the while boring in with narrowed eyes.
    “Forgive me mother for I have sinned. My tone often grates on people. It’s something I’m working on, humming scales in long cold showers. It’s my ambition to someday have perfect pitch, the right tone for rich, demanding, drop-dead-gorgeous customers like yourself. The right tone can’t be wasted on just anyone. Now, if you’d rather hire another investigator, one with a nice tone, perhaps I can recommend a few. There’s a pastor I know with a great calming manner who occasionally does missing persons.”
    The wall around Julia Gateswood was hard, high and cold, even though it sometimes rolled down suddenly and unexpectedly. I was betting even she didn’t know when that might happen. I’d pushed her; her eyes said she didn’t resent it as much as she acted so. Politics is a dirty hard business; she was up to her neck in it, and it wouldn’t take more than a few years to cement the wall in place. Strange, but she didn’t strike me as one of the new Peace Corps types, all wide-eyed idealistic about the power of government to fix man’s basic nature, which was the sort of bosh Henry Gateswood was trying to sell to the masses. Government was man’s basic nature, the whole slimy sewer of it.
    Not all fashion has to do with tail fins or hemlines; the fashionable JFK bandwagon, with its talk about bearing any burden and paying any price was merely a lead-in to