Never Say No To A Killer by Clifton Adams

Author:Clifton Adams [Adams, Clifton]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Munsey's
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

“HOW DO YOU like it?”

“It's beautiful! It's positively beautiful!”

“Come on in the bedroom and look at yourself in the mirror.”

“Really, you shouldn't have done this! It's much too expensive!”

“That's nonsense. All good things come expensive, I learned that long ago, while dishwashing my way through college.”

It really was a hell of a coat. To be perfectly truthful, it was much more coat than I had figured on at first, but the minute I saw ft I knew that nothing else would do. It was a French import, a Balmain, with an exterior of oyster white nylon velvet which is absolutely the most decadent material ever created by the hand of man, and it was completely lined with natural wild mink. The fantastic extravagance of lining a coat with wild mink had completely fascinated the more bizarre aspect of my nature. When they first showed it to me I had burst into laughter. How many Frenchmen would go without shoes this winter, how many Parisian bellies would be empty—and who gave a damn? “That coat,”” I had told the sales girl, “is absolutely the god-damnedest, most decadent example of a completely lost civilization that I have ever seen—and I'll take it!”

Pat hugged the coat around her and studied herself from all angles in the bedroom mirror. She had the kind of poise that could not be taught, it was the result of a long purebred bloodline and nothing else. She was class, every inch of her, and that coat was just for her.

“It comes off pretty well,” I said. “If there are any changes you want on it, the shop it came from will take care of it.”

“I wouldn't have it touched!” she said. “Not for anything in the world! It's just perfect... but it frightens me when I think what it must have cost!”

It had cost damn near as much as the Lincoln, but it was worth it, every penny. I said, “From now on we don't consider price tags, we don't even look at them. Now how about some wine?”

“... All right.”

She kept posing, turning, staring at herself in the mirror. Strangely, she hadn't smiled, not once. From the time she opened the package she had registered a good many emotions, but she hadn't smiled. She had wrapped the coat around her, tightly, hugged herself in it, almost as though she were trying to lose herself in the sheer luxury of it. There was a bright ecstasy in her eyes as she burrowed deeper and deeper into the incredible softness of the fur, and for a moment I imagined that she was trying to hide, that she was receding into the soft, secure folds of fur.

I had learned some things about Pat Kelso, and I understood a little of what she must have felt at that moment. At one time the Kelsos had had everything. They were an old family, and very proud, but unfortunately the ability to make money had not grown with their great pride. Pat's father had been forced into bankruptcy, and later, suicide.

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