Gypsy in Amber by Smith Martin Cruz

Author:Smith, Martin Cruz [Smith, Martin Cruz]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Acclaimed.Edgar Award.Nom, Cultural & Ethnic, Fiction.Mystery/Detective
ISBN: 9780330269049
Google: V45DPgAACAAJ
Amazon: 0345306147
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Published: 1982-09-12T04:00:00+00:00

15

Vera was happy because Laza would not have been able to marry for some time if Nanoosh’s name had not been cleared. Roman explained to her on the phone that Sergeant Isadore solved the crime, but as far as she and her kumponia were concerned, they had asked Roman to save Nanoosh’s mulo from limbo, and in a week that was what happened. Their low opinion of the police accepted no other interpretation. Now they could celebrate.

All the curtains inside the ofisa were pulled aside so that the party covered the entire floor from the back to the front of the building. Folding tables were placed together and decorated with colorful cloths. On them were plates of cold cuts, barbecued chickens, meat-stuffed pancakes called bokoli, pink beef with a sharp scent of rosemary, pork roast with liquorice aniseed, a holiday goose redolent of sage and marjoram, more chickens, and from somewhere an enormous glistening suckling pig. Surrounding these, as if the point of honor was to leave no inch of the table bare, were smaller bowls of yogurt with sesame or lettuce or cucumbers or tomatoes. Women shoved these together to make room for slippery white beans in vinegar, chick-peas in sesame paste and green beans in sour cream. The men spiced their thirsts with lentils and cheese and small, salty ripe olives. Children reached for honeyed pastries, meat balls rolled in nutmeg and chilly squares of eggplant that ringed fragile mountains of fresh black bread. At one end of the long line of tables a brother of the groom pumped beer from the kegs around him like a happy madman trying to explode a cache of dynamite lost in the profusion.

“It is a very good match,” Vera announced into Roman’s ear. “Dodo came to me the other day about his boy as if he had a present. Him with those two apes of brothers with the chicken in their hands.” She pointed with a hunk of pork. “They offered only five hundred dollars if you can believe it.” Roman shook his head with simulated wonder. What did make him wonder was how Vera was able to speak above the din of spontaneous singing, dancing, bragging and two competing record players, one with the rhapsodies of Balogh Istvan and the other with the flamencos of Manitas de Plata.

“Romano, I ask you. Five hundred dollars for a sweet girl like Laza! Sweet-tempered, hardworking, beautiful like a plum, knows how to duiker like a grandmother, can go into J. C. Penney’s and come out with an electric stove nobody sees her. For a boy like Kalia. Dumb, bad-mannered, ugly. I pity his mother. All he thinks about is cars, and he gets caught stealing those. As a favor, just so as not to dishonor Dodo in front of his own brothers, I ask four thousand dollars. It’s the least I can do for Laza.”

One of his friends gave Roman a fresh beer and tried to take him away by the arm, but Vera hung on.

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