The Dragon in the Ghetto Caper Read Online Free PDF Page A

famous detective as it was for a famous author.
    Edie listened with great interest. “I’ll help,” she said.
    â€œDon’t be ridiculous. How can you help? Half the time you talk as if you were born without conjunctions.”
    â€œI talk perfectly all right after people know me. Harry—he’s my husband—says that I taper toward normal. I think it’s nice that he says that I
taper
toward normal. Means that normal is less than what I usually am.”
    But to strangers, Edie always talked in confetti. And it was that very thing that he had to avoid. It was all righthaving her as a secret sidekick, but he didn’t want to encourage her. When he was famous, she’d have to appear in public, and the public, God knows, is full of strangers.
    â€œThanks a lot,” Andy said, “but I can do without you. I have a cassette player. I’ll just read something into it, listen and repeat it into the cassette. Then I’ll play that back and listen again.”
    â€œMemorizing
reading
isn’t the same as memorizing
listening.
Memorizing listening is harder. I’ll tell you what. I’ll do the reading. You do the listening and memorizing, and I’ll check you. It will be faster and more like conversation for you.”
    Andy thought that no one, but no one, had ever heard of a sidekick helping a detective get trained. Sidekicks took orders and anticipated needs. Allowing someone to help him would make them too equal; you can’t get too equal with a sidekick. Imagine Ellery or Sherlock doing that. “I should hope that your helping would be nothing at all like having a conversation with you. Having a conversation with you is like watching a TV program that is out of sync.”
    Edie looked down at her lap and said very quietly, “I thought you were beginning to understand dragons.” She shoved her glasses up on her nose and looked at Andy through their sides.
    Dragons
made him remember his valentine. He took it out. “By the way, this is for you. It’s not due until tomorrow, but I was finished, so I brought it over.” He handed it to her.

    Edie looked at it a long time. Her eyes were shining and saying thank you, but she said nothing. Out loud. Her smile said a lot. No one had ever appreciated his dragons that much. His mother preferred hearts and cupids, and Mary Jane had told him that she thought that he was some kind of pervert, never doing anything but dragons. (Mary Jane had said that when he got older he would read Freud and find out how really weird he was.) And here was Edie, not thinking that he was weird at all. He was more flattered than he thought he should be. “Don’t steam your glasses over it,” he said. He hadn’t meant to say that. Heshould have thought of a better way, a cool way to show his appreciation of her appreciation.
    â€œMay I show it to Harry?” Edie asked. “He understands dragons. He claims that he was married to one for twentythree years.” Andy looked puzzled. “Not me.” She added, “I’m not a twenty-three-year wife. His first one was. The one he divorced to marry me.” Edie stared at the valentine a bit longer. “Is this one a boy or a girl?” she asked.
    â€œI wouldn’t give a girl to a girl for Valentine’s Day, for God’s sake.”
    â€œThat’s right,” Edie said. “I should have known.”
    He didn’t like her feeling guilty about not knowing it was a boy. He hadn’t decided what it was until she had asked. “That’s okay,” he said. “You can show it to Harry if you want to.”
    â€œGee thanks,” Edie said. “Isn’t there anything I can do to help you? I would love to help you.”
    â€œOh, okay,” Andy replied. “I’ll bring some stuff over tomorrow, and I’ll see how you work out.”
    â€œI’m going to try to be great at helping you,” Edie