One Good and Deadly Deed by Dudley Lynch

Author:Dudley Lynch
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: ECW Press
Published: 2020-10-06T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 40

The maître d’ at the country club greeted Angie with a handshake that involved both his hands.

His name badge said he was Alain. His accent didn’t come close to sounding Celtic — or French — to me. It did sound cultivated, but that could have been a country club thing resulting from a lot of practice.

He acknowledged me with a curt nod and asked my colleague if she wanted a table in the big room or a room of her own. She said a room of her own. And told him she’d have another guest arriving shortly.

He stopped at the door of a room at the far end of the hallway, gave us a half-bow, invited us to enter, followed us inside, and disappeared into a small side room. But only for a moment.

When he emerged, he was pushing a serving cart. With one hand. The other hand was balancing — for the moment — a long, collapsible folding screen.

He lifted the divider off the cart. Opened its four hinged panels. Then set it in place so that it shielded the table farthest from the door.

This is when I understood. The screen would keep the occupants of that table from the prying eyes of anyone who might try to take a peek from the hallway or enter the room unbidden.

Alain did all this without a word. Then he half-bowed again. Gave Angie a knowing smile. Sent a perfunctory salute in my direction, and exited, closing the door firmly behind him.

I was amused. “Does Alain have any idea what you do behind his screen?”

Angie opened her mouth to reply but before she could get a word out, Alain was back.

This time, he was being trailed by a woman in early middle age. There was no way her plus-size figure could ever be draped to disguise one glaring fact. The diameter of her linebacker shoulders defined her width all the way to her ankles.

Her taste in clothes didn’t help matters any. Today, she had selected a flared-sleeved, scoop-necked white dress with alternating rows of magenta circles and crosses. It ended about six inches above her knees and did nothing to create the illusion of a waist.

I assumed this was Angie’s Mole No. 2.

Two adult males completed the entourage. One had a stern look on his face and seemed to be accompanying the lady. He looked like he was on the clock. Without thinking about it, I assumed he was a lawyer.

And the other one? He looked like he was on something too. My first thought was lysergic acid diethylamide. Then I corrected myself. Wrong drug, wrong decade, wrong century, in fact, dude. And this guy didn’t need a drug assist. He was high on himself.

His face was projecting the same kind of look that Dr. Bender and Nina Kendricks had been radiating at the airport as they headed out the door that led to the boarding area. He was confident to the point of arrogance.

I got the feeling he’d walked into the room expecting to dominate the conversation.

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