Out on the Rim Read Online Free PDF Page A

it’s past eleven,” Neal Hineline said from behind the still closed door. “You sober?”
    â€œClose enough.”
    The door opened and Stallings entered into a reception hall whose
parquet floor creaked nicely with age. A remarkable stairway curved up to the second floor. His son-in-law stood—or posed—beside the delicately carved newel post, a man so handsome it was difficult for Stallings to believe that he was as dim as he seemed. Difficult, but not impossible.
    Stallings sometimes hoped it was all an act, and that beneath the wavy blond hair and behind the puzzled puppy eyes was a magnificent brain, busily thinking up all sorts of elegant international schemes. This was, Stallings sometimes thought, one of his last remaining fantasies.
    â€œJoanna’s right through there,” Hineline said, indicating the living room’s 150-year-old double sliding doors that had been carved by the same craftsman who had created the newel post.
    â€œIt’s you I need to talk to, Neal.”
    â€œMe?”
    â€œYou.”
    â€œOh. Yes. Of course.” Hineline’s right hand strayed automatically toward the inside breast pocket of his gray tweed jacket. “Sorry about the foundation, Booth. How much—”
    â€œNot money,” Stallings said, stifling a sigh. “Advice.”
    Hineline’s hand stopped its slow journey toward the inside pocket where the checkbook presumably lay. “Advice,” he said.
    Stallings nodded.
    â€œDid you see your Mr. Crites? The one who called Joanna?”
    â€œI saw him.”
    â€œWell, then, why not just pop in and say hello to Joanna and then come on back to my study where we can talk.”
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    Joanna Hineline was prettier than her dead mother and, at five-nine, two inches taller. But there was still the uncanny resemblance that always disturbed Stallings until his daughter opened her mouth. After that there was no resemblance at all.

    She turned now, smiling—although not very much—as Stallings entered the living room that was long and narrow and contained many of the French antiques she had begun to collect after she married Neal Hineline and could afford them.
    Her slight smile was not one of welcome, but of amusement—as if something unexpectedly quaint had just strayed in. Stallings thought it may well have. As always, the uncanny resemblance to his dead wife vanished when his daughter opened her mouth and said, “You’re looking chipper for an unemployment statistic—or do we call it jobless now?”
    â€œI’m neither.”
    â€œYou’ve already found something else?” Joanna Hineline said, signaling disbelief by cocking her left eyebrow to an almost amazing height, just as Stallings’ dead wife had when she’d wanted others to know they’d said something ridiculous, fatuous or dumb.
    After Stallings replied with a shrug and a maybe, Joanna Hineline said, “Then that dinner with your friend paid off.”
    â€œHe’s not exactly a friend.”
    She nodded, as if expecting the comment. “You could say that about almost everyone, couldn’t you? ‘He’s not exactly a friend.’”
    â€œAlmost,” Stallings said.
    â€œSo tell me about the new job. Does it pay a lot?”
    â€œAsk Neal. If State wants it spread all over town, he’ll tell you. But he’ll probably say it’s none of your business.”
    â€œIn that unlikely event, I’ll simply have to pry it out of him later. In bed.”
    â€œHe’ll like that,” Stallings said, turned and headed for the small downstairs back room that Neal Hineline liked to call his study.
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    The room faced south. It had French doors overlooking a tiny garden that night had made invisible. But Stallings knew that with the early spring a fine stand of azaleas might be in bloom. The study also
boasted a wall of photographs and a wall of