[Philip & Gilbert 01] Blue Heaven by Keenan Joe

Author:Keenan, Joe [Keenan, Joe]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780140107647
Publisher: Arrow
Published: 1988-01-01T08:00:00+00:00

When I returned to my apartment some three hours later the phone was ringing. Hastily depositing my bags and packages on the sofa I snatched it up and murmured a breathless hello.

“Where have you been?” said Claire.

“Out.”

“I am getting you an answering machine for Christmas. It’s more than my nerves can take these days to listen to your line ring while I sit here wondering if you’re trussed up in Freddy’s slaughterhouse.”

“Must you?”

“Sorry. What’s the word from Gilbert? Did the duchess call?”

“I was just going to phone and ask myself.”

“What about Aggie’s check? Did it come yet?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact,” I said, guiltily eyeing the cast albums.

“How much?”

“Five hundred.”

“Good gracious! Well, you’d better put it in the bank. If you return the same check she’ll know you were planning to quit right from the start.”

“Actually, it wasn’t a check,” I said, beginning to feel that, while it would certainly be nice to have some scotch in the house again, Ballantine’s would really have done just as well as Pinch and, similarly, that two liters might have sufficed to see me through the season.

“She sent cash?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, dear, Philip. I hope you won’t get angry with me but I think it might be a good idea if you gave it to me.”

“Claire!”

“You know how money burns a hole in your pocket. And if you have all that cash on hand the week before Christmas you’ll be tempted to spend it. And you do see how enormously foolish that would be, don’t you?”

“Of course!”

“And you know it will be safe with me. Please. For your own sake.”

“I’d really rather not.”

A telling silence ensued.

“Okay,” sighed Claire, “how much is left?”

“Uh, I’m not sure,” I said pulling my wallet from my coat pocket. I checked the contents and gasped with surprise. I had spent like some mesmerist’s dupe under a posthypnotic suggestion to squander. Now, the trance broken. I could scarcely believe the extent of the damages.

“I’ve got sixty-two bucks.”

“Please tell me you’re joking.”

“Look, I can still pay her the money back! I’ll be making plenty and if I put so much aside every week I can—”

“But you won’t. You have never put money aside in your life! When you make it, you spend it! You’ll be going to the theater and restaurants and buying expensive liquor and when it’s time to quit you won’t be able to without making that cobra woman feel you’ve played her for a fool so you’ll have to go on working at the damn place for at least half a year or till someone puts a bullet in your head, which at the moment I’d be all for!”

“Well, Merry Christmas to you, too!”

“I am trying to save your life, you dolt, and the job would be much simpler with even minimal assistance from you.”

“I can take perfectly good care of myself!”

Her reply to this was lengthy and masterful but limitations of space prevent its inclusion in this account. Suffice it to say that after I hung up

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