The Diva Wore Diamonds Read Online Free PDF Page B

and Wormy thought he was, in her words, ‘shootin’ blanks.’ Of course, that original test was twelve years ago.”
    “ I thought he got re-tested right after the wedding.”
    “ That’s what he told us. He needed to get the loan for his Ferris wheel.”
    “ I remember,” I said. “He put his sperm count down as income. Ah, those were heady days for borrowing money. Getting a loan was as easy as lying to your banker.” I took another bite of my dinner. “This is a great sandwich. Really!”
    “ Glad you like it,” said Meg with a smile. “But don’t talk with your mouth full.”
    Yep. I was married.

    •••

    Buxtehooter’s was always bustling on “Two-Dollar Thursday.” The Baroque sing-alongs had been relegated to Friday and Saturday nights since the big brawl on Pachelbel’s birthday, so the crowd was less rowdy than usual, but the beer-fräuleins were still hustling buckets of two-buck suds delivered primly on jutting chests the size of Myron Floren’s accordion. The owners had put a TV over the bar and tuned it to the local religious network — a mixture of shows that included “Are You Smarter Than A Lutheran?,” “Dancing With the Baptists,” and “CSI: Vatican.” It drew a small crowd. Unitarians mostly.
    I grabbed a seat at a table and whistled at Ermentraud, my current favorite Buxtehooter’s soubrette. She sashayed over in a dirndl packed as tightly as the coach section of a 747.
    “ Hiya, Erms,” I said. “Gimme some tonsil varnish and put a head on it.”
    “ Ja, ja!”
    “ And maybe we can meet later? When you’re off work?”
    “ Ja, ja! Ich werde Sie hinter den Abfalleimern treffen, meine mollige Gans. Ich freue mich darauf, Ihr Geld zu nehmen.”
    I got the “Ja, ja” part, smiled, and tucked a sawbuck into the bouquet of bills that sprouted from the top of her blouse like some kind of hydroponic, milk-fed cabbage patch. It’s good to be a detective.

    •••

    “ Nice,” said Meg, reading over my shoulder. “And by ‘nice,’ I mean terrible. What does the German mean?”
    “ You’ll have to look it up, meine mollige Gans, ” I said.
    “ I’m not sure I like the sound of that,” said Meg. She descended gently back onto the couch and picked up the biography she’d been reading. That was the thing about Meg. She never flopped. She never plopped. She descended, she alighted, she settled gracefully. It was marvelous just to watch her exist.
    “ How is the protest going at the Bear and Brew?” she asked, without looking up from her book. She licked the tip of her finger and used it to turn a page.
    I took my beverage over to the couch and plunked down beside her. Unlike Meg, I plunked.
    “ Brother Hog is true to his word. He’s been holding a prayer meeting every morning all week long, and no one has bothered any of the patrons. So far, so good. The Bear and Brew is even letting the old people use their bathrooms.”
    “ I think that’s sweet,” said Meg. “It’s good to have a civilized demonstration.”
    “ But Saturday, there’ll be a whole lot more people. Most of Brother Hog’s congregation has been working during the meetings. On Saturday, they’ll be off work and out in full force.”
    “ I’m sure you and Nancy can handle it, dear,” she said, reaching over and patting me on the cheek, her eyes still scanning the words on the page in front of her.
    “ You know who one of the owners is?” I said, trying to draw her out of Raymond Chandler’s life story.
    “ Russ Stafford?”
    “ What? How did you know that?”
    She put her book down and laughed. “He’s been in on it since the beginning. A silent partner. I’m his accountant, remember?”
    “ No, I didn’t remember.”
    Russ had been a high-roller, a real-estate developer before everything went south. After his most ambitious development, The Clifftops—a gated, golfing community eighteen miles from town—went belly-up, he’d gone to Asheville to see if he could make a