He Done Her Wrong: A Toby Peters Mystery (Book Eight) (Toby Peters Mysteries) Read Online Free PDF Page A

small bald man who looked like Donald Meek came in, accompanied by a good-looking, no-nonsense dark woman. The man was carrying a shopping bag from the May Company.
    “Too old for the army,” Aardvark said, finishing his drink and touching my arm with a grin. “But I’d join like that, if they’d take me.” Like that was a failed finger snap.
    “Not me,” I said, watching Donald Meek agonize over where to put his shopping bag, until his companion directed him to the small main dining table.
    “Me either,” agreed Aardvark. “I lied. I lie a lot. Don’t mean to. Just comes out that way.”
    “You’ve got to practice,” I advised him, watching two more old ladies come in. “Takes a lot of practice to be a good liar. May be the most important thing a detective can learn.”
    “I thought about being a writer once,” Aardvark chuckled. I didn’t see anything funny in wanting to be a writer. He started to say something else, but a wave of noise from the next room drowned him out. When the sound passed, Aardvark nodded toward the other room. “Political stuff, I think. Bunch of guys with straw hats and pictures on donkeys and elephants. In the middle of a war, still thinking about politics.” He shook his head. I shook mine and chewed on an ice cube.
    “Can I get you a real drink?” he asked, looking at his empty glass.
    “Another Pepsi will be fine,” said I. “It’s full of calories, like the ads say. One hundred and eighty-five calories of pure energy. More than a lamb chop.”
    Aardvark looked at my battered face, trying to decide if I was joking.
    People a lot sharper than the Aardvark had tried to read my kisser and got nowhere. Mine is a dark face with a flat nose topped with a full head of dark hair generously sprinkled with gray. I stand about five nine and do my best to give the impression that I can take on tigers. It’s part of the job. The truth is that my nose has been smashed three times in losing causes. Once by my brother Phil’s fist, once by a flight through the windshield of a 1931 Oldsmobile, and once by a baseball thrown by my brother. I sweat too easily, dress too shabbily, and usually can’t resist the urge to open my mouth when I should keep it shut.
    I smiled at an old lady in a little black hat who had looked my way. My smile scared her, and she turned to the other old lady she was with, but I wasn’t to be alone for long. Donald Meek advanced shyly and forced himself to meet my eye. Over his shoulder a possible suspect came in, a block-shaped guy about thirty-five wearing a dark suit, a black cape, a floppy white hat, and carrying a cane. He raised his chin and glanced around the room. He saw me but paused only for the space between two adjacent shots in a film and then moved on. He was a real possible.
    “I’m Howard Lachtman,” the Donald Meek look-alike said, unsure of whether to hold out his hand for a handshake. Instead, he let it rise slightly. I grabbed it and said I was pleased to meet him. I’d talked to him on the phone the day before, asked him about his group, and received the invitation to come to this meeting and be the speaker.
    “We’ve never had a detective talk to us,” he had said. “We have no program set yet outside of Jeff and Angela Pierce showing their prewar slides of London and Dick Campbell giving a report on …” His voice had trailed off, unable to remember what Campbell was going to report on.
    “Sure,” I had agreed. “I’ll be glad to.”
    And now Lachtman stood before me, coming about to my shoulders and clearly uneasy.
    “We’ve never had a real detective talk to us before,” he repeated.
    “I know,” I said keeping up my end of the lively art of conversation, which had all the signs of turning into the scene from To Be or Not to Be with Jack Benny and Stanley Ridges and Sig Ruman repeating the So-they-call-me-concentration-camp-Erhardt line.
    “Why do you call yourselves the ‘Engineer’s Thumbs,’” I asked, not