The Man Who Lived by Night by David Handler

Author:David Handler [Handler, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Suspense
ISBN: 9781453259757
Publisher: Bantam
Published: 1989-03-01T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER EIGHT

LULU WAS GETTING SOFT.

Too much of Merilee’s cooking and too little physical activity had dulled her razor-sharp huntress instincts. She was slow to react when I let myself into the mews house. In fact, she didn’t react at all.

I knelt and scratched her ears. She sniffed at my fingers with the cool reserve she usually shows roach exterminators and federal census takers. I hadn’t visited her on her bed of pain for two whole days. I was getting the treatment for it.

“This has gone far enough,” I told her firmly. “I’ve already apologized numerous times for what happened. And you know I can’t be here with you all the time.”

I reached down to hoist her out of her bed. She resisted me, grunting unappreciatively. I’m bigger. I lifted her up and held her. Usually, she likes to nestle into me and put her head on my shoulder like a dance partner. Not now. Now she squirmed in my arms, and wanted to be put down. I obliged her.

“Okay, be a martyr,” I said, as I headed for the phone. “See what it gets you.”

Tris was still asleep and not taking any calls. I told Pamela I’d be late for work the next evening because I wanted to look through Tulip’s photo album. She said she’d pass the news on to Mr. Scarr. She also said she’d quite enjoyed transcribing our last couple of tapes.

“I really do hear him now, Hoagy.”

“Glad you think so,” I said, pleased she’d noticed a difference. I was getting him now. If only I was getting closer to figuring out who’d shot at me, too. Then I’d be making real progress.

I had just enough time to soak in a hot tub with a Laphroaig—it wasn’t too smoky for me—before it was time to watch part ten of Giant Worms of the Sea. I was very into this series now I wasn’t sure why. Two possibilities came to mind. Either it was an acquired taste or I’d been in England too long.

When the show was over, I put my new suit on over a black cashmere turtleneck and spooned out a can of mackerel for Lulu. She glowered at it like it was Alpo beef chunks. Still, I said good-bye fondly, hoping she’d feel guilty over the way she’d been treating me. I’m sure she didn’t.

The mini was still out of service, so I was using the Peugeot diesel wagon. It went from zero to sixty in a day and a half, and had no fridge, but driving it made me nostalgic. I’d had a diesel just like it the year I lived in the Perigord Valley, subsisting on goose liver pâté and chilled Monbazillac while I struggled with the first draft of Our Family Enterprise. Ah, youth.

I parked near the theater and waited for Merilee at the performer’s entrance like a stage-door Johnny, flowers and all. A dapper older gent was also waiting there for a cast member, though I think it likely the fluffy blond object of his affections was named Steve.

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