A Do-Si-Do With Death (Stan Kraychik Mystery Book 7) by Grant Michaels

Author:Grant Michaels [Michaels, Grant]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: ReQueered Tales
Published: 2022-05-24T00:00:00+00:00

14.

ON MY WAY BACK HOME, I stop by Snips Salon. It’s well after six o’clock, and the place is finally closing up for the holiday weekend. Nicole is in the back office, having a smoke and a drink – bourbon, rocks. I pour one for myself and join her.

“I think Branco’s having a nervous breakdown.

She says, “Instigated by you, no doubt.”

“Whose side are you on?”

“How many times did you see Vito today?”

“Three, so far.”

“That would do it,” says Nicole.

“He yelled at me in front of his crew.”

She says, “It shows how much Vito trusts you.”

“What does?”

“If he didn’t trust you, Stanley, he wouldn’t expose his feelings like that, in public.”

“Speaking of exposed feelings, Branco’s looking more and more like an exhausted sex-slave.”

“But that’s good, isn’t it?” says Nicole. “For him?”

“I can’t make heads or tails of it.”

“Of what?” says Nicole.

“It’s like he’s in a cage. He’s trying to act tamer, but instead he’s even wilder.”

Nicole says, “I think you’re the one who’s wilder, darling, in your imagination. Vito is extremely happy with his wife.”

“But he’s only doing it to protect her.”

“Doing what?”

“Having sex all the time.”

“To protect her?” says Nicole.

“So the real world can’t see what he did.”

Nicole’s eyes cross slightly.

I explain. “Branco serves his wife’s endless demands because he feels responsible. First, he deflowered her. Then, as if that didn’t induce enough guilt, when she was supposed to burgeon with the splendor of young motherhood, instead she became a voracious sex demon.”

“Tell me again,” says Nicole, “who is having the nervous breakdown?”

“It shows on his face, Nikki. Something isn’t right.”

“I know what isn’t right,” she says. “You’re still annoyed with him for getting married. After saving his life you hoped things might be different between you two. Well, they are different, Stanley. The man will be indebted to you for as long as he lives, but that does not obligate him to become your lover.”

“Nikki! Lover? Branco? With me? It would be the worst thing in the world. Just look at how we don’t get along. We’d kill each other. It would never work. You’re absolutely wrong.”

Nicole says blithely, “It sounds like a love story to me.”

“An absurd love story.”

“Is there another kind?” she says. “Never mind, dear.

Once you find someone –”

“I don’t want someone, Nikki. I had someone, and that’s enough. I’m not sure I even want another cat.”

“As you wish, Stanley. What’s on for tonight?”

“Branco wants me to keep nosing around the cowboy klatch.”

Nicole smiles. “Plus ça change …”

I ask her, “What about you?”

“I’m working on my sitcom.”

“Alone?”

“For the time being,” she says.

I finish my drink, we say good night, and I head home.

* * *

By the time I get in, it’s almost eight. There’s a message from Benjy, so I call him back. That boy has countless phones and phone numbers too, yet he always picks up as though he’s reclining at horne, a lad of leisure, when in fact he might be lunching with a State House politician, or plowing through a deadline at work, or having steam room sex.

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