Pattern of Behavior by Paul Bishop

Author:Paul Bishop [Bishop, Paul]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781641197298
Publisher: Wolfpack Publishing
Published: 2019-06-25T22:00:00+00:00

The only chink in Georgie Taylor’s beautiful armor was her voice. It was high-pitched, almost a whine, and marred what was otherwise a perfect picture. O’Farrell knew nothing about how this beauty pageant was supposed to be run. He wondered if it called for the girls to actually speak.

Dinner was a tense affair at a nearby restaurant that O’Farrell suspected was below Balducci’s usual dining standards. Even Georgie had lifted one side of her lips and sniffed when they entered. For his part, O’Farrell found his steak delicious.

For a dinner where he and Georgie were supposed to be getting acquainted, Vincent Balducci did most of the talking. O’Farrell spent more time looking at Georgie than listening to his client.

Later, when they returned to the apartment house on Beekman Place, Balducci stopped in the lobby and said, “I’m not coming up.”

“Why not?” Georgie asked.

“Because you two need to talk,” Balducci said. “I want you to spend some time together and really talk, this time.” He turned to face O’Farrell. “Georgie has all the details about the party at the Yacht Club Friday night. I won’t see you again until then. I’ll have my wife with me, so if we come face to face, we will just be meeting. Do you understand?”

“Perfectly.”

“My dear,” Balducci said. He leaned over to kiss Georgie, but she presented him with nothing but a cheek. “I’ll see you soon.”

“Yes,” she said, quietly. Then she looked at O’Farrell. “Come on, then.”

The building had an elevator, but Georgie preferred to walk, which O’Farrell had discovered on their way down. He, in fact, had a distrust of elevators and had walked up when he first arrived.

This was something he had shared with his friend, the great Bat Masterson. Masterson, a legend of the Old West, lived in New York, and not only had a column in the Morning Telegraph but was a vice president of the newspaper. In his mid-sixties, the old lawman still had more faith in a horse than an elevator, and almost never used a telephone if he didn’t have to. O’Farrell liked to think of himself as someone who had been born too late. He should have been with Bat on the streets of Dodge City, with a gun on his hip.

Georgie opened her door with her key and marched right to the sideboard. She was dragging her mink stole behind her and let it drop to the floor. O’Farrell bent, picked it up, and deposited it on a chair.

“I need a drink,” she said. “Join me?”

“Why not, but if you don’t mind, I’ll have bourbon.”

“A man after my own heart,” she said. She poured bourbon over some ice cubes in two glasses and handed him one. She sipped hers, clunked the glass against her teeth and eyed him over the rim.

“After this, we could go to the bedroom and fuck our brains out,” she offered. “Or we could take the drinks with us and go now.”

“Somehow,” O’Farrell said, “I don’t think that’s what your boyfriend had in mind when he said he wanted us to get better acquainted.

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