Murder in the Wind Read Online Free PDF Page B

two years. That’s the honest truth. I’ve felt pretty bad about some of the things I’ve done. That’s why I told Betty a pretty complete history. I don’t think you could surprise her. She knows I’ve changed and she knows why. She’s watched me work with the kids there at the club. Love can change a man, Mr. Oldbern.”
    “You thought of everything, didn’t you? You’ve had two years to work on it.”
    “I’d hoped we could get along.”
    “Do you have a price, Hollis?”
    “What do you mean?”
    “I can write a fairly large check.”
    “I’m not thinking about money, Mr. Oldbern. I’m in love with your daughter. And she’s in love with me. We want to be married. That seems pretty straightforward, doesn’t it?”
    “My God, I wish I knew this had been going on. Have you two been…”
    “No sir. I swear that all I’ve ever done is kiss Betty. I guess I’ve done that pretty often. And I talked her out of running away to be married last year. She wanted to do that.”
    “But you knew it might mean a cash loss.”
    “I don’t want to tell you what to do, but I think you ought to face this, Mr. Oldbern. It’s going to happen.”
    The man looked older. “Sit down, Hollis. Let me think.”
    Bunny sat down. The man sat with his hand cupped over his eyes. He sighed heavily a few times. When he took his hand away, he looked intently at Hollis. “I understand you, you know. I know what you’re doing. She’s so damn vulnerable. Are you going to try to make her happy? Are you going to even try?”
    “Of course I’m going to try.”
    “Are you going to ask me to give you some kind of a job with a title? You certainly can’t stay on at the club.”
    “Her income figures out to about a hundred and sixty thousand a year before taxes. Taxes will take a lot, but we can live comfortably on the balance. We’re thinking about trying some place along the Mediterranean coast. After the honeymoon, that is. I’m paying for the honeymoon with the money I’ve saved up.”
    “White of you, Bunny.”
    “I think she’ll feel better about the honeymoon if she isn’t paying for it.”
    “There isn’t anything I or anyone else can do, is there?”
    Bunny permitted himself his usual likeable grin. “If there is, I wasn’t able to think of it.”
    “I certainly hoped she’d do better when she married.” Bunny still grinned. “Like you said, she isn’t what you’d call a pretty girl. Maybe she’s doing about as well as she can do, Mr. Oldbern. Maybe she’s doing better than she would have. We think we’d like a small quiet wedding. Just the family.”
    “When do you want it?”
    “A month from tomorrow.”
    The capitulation was far easier than Bunny had expected. He wondered if Oldbern would have made a more valiant effort to defend his chick had the chick been more decorative, more personable.
    Bunny stuck his hand across the desk. Oldbern looked at him, started to take his hand and then changed his mind. “You did this damn neatly, Hollis. But I don’t have to shake your hand. I don’t have to do that.”
    “Suit yourself, Mr. Oldbern.”
    He remembered how jubilant he was as he went down in the elevator. He wished Cutler hadn’t died. It would be nice for Cutler to read all about it. The sullen skinny kid from the public courts.
    Three zero zero zero zero zero zero. The wedding had been quiet. The tabloids were noisy. None of the news accounts bothered him. One columnist got a half millimeter under his hide:
    “Bunny Hollis, ex-almost tennis great, and bronzed glamor boy emeritus, proved yesterday to fellow refugees from sports headlines that with patience, a file of scrap books and the ability to balance a tea cup, a spotted past can be parlayed into a glowing future. Our Bunny bided his time at the swank Oswando Club where, for the past few years he has been teaching the game he once played well to the children and the wives of the almost rich, the middle rich and the big rich. And