Calling Dr. Patchwork by Ron Goulart

Author:Ron Goulart [Goulart, Ron]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-4532-7708-9
Publisher: MysteriousPress.com/Open Road
Published: 2012-08-30T16:22:00+00:00

Chapter 13

“THIS ISN’T A SULK,” said Hildy in a slow precise way. She was sitting as far across the wide floating bed from Jake as she could.

“Oh, so?”

“Because if I were sulking you’d be flat on your kazoo on the floor of this alleged suite,” she carefully explained. “When I really work into a good sulk, Jacob, I rehearse in my mind all the injustices which our stormy marriage has caused to be visited upon me. I then come to the inevitable conclusion you are the ultimate source of them all and I’m compelled to give you a good clout in the puss. So this isn’t a sulk, though it’s edging dangerously close to being.”

“Whenever you refer to me as Jacob, that’s a prime sulk symptom.”

“That is your legal first name, is it not?” Hildy was fully clothed, sitting upright with arms folded. “Jake is merely a boyish nickname, one which you ought seriously to consider shedding at your age. You are after all, Jacob, perilously close to middle age.”

“I intend to live to be at least 90. Therefore 45 or thereabouts will be my midlife point.”

“Fat chance.” She snorted, less politely than usual. “Taking the needless risks you do, cavorting with teenage concubines, sitting in with tacky jazz robots, getting yourself stunned. You’ll be lucky to make it to 45, let alone 90.”

“In which case 22 was my middle spot and I’m long beyond it and don’t have to worry,” said Jake. “Speaking, by the way, of screwing up on a mission. How much did those commandos cost?”

“No business of yours.”

“We’re, as you are fond of reminding, equal partners in Odd Jobs, Inc. So I want to know what your foolishness cost my half of the business.”

“Saving your life is foolishness, huh? Yes, I suppose it is.”

“You could have done that with two commandos, not nine.”

“A jazz buff such as yourself, Jacob, ought to know you can’t have much of a marching band with only two players.”

“You didn’t need a marching band at all.”

“Your opinion, not mine. You’re simply not audacious enough anymore.”

“Sitting around on your bare butt…is that audacious?”

“Which instance are you alluding to?”

“The most recent obviously, your Swiss violin playing escapade.”

“That got results.”

“New to me, I haven’t heard of any.”

“You’ve been too busy, ever since we turned Boody Lasswell and Two-Ton over to those agents Gunther sent down, criticizing me to listen. Some one on such a tight schedule as you, I wonder you have any time for your wife at all.”

“Ah,” said Jake. “I see it all at last. You’re angry because when you came barging in with those tone deaf black commandos I made some obviously good-natured whimsical remark about your being late. The idea being I’d already managed, as I usually do, to get myself out of trouble.”

“A joke which requires an explanation is no joke.”

“Didn’t I pose as a standup comic during our investigation of the Druid movement in Nebraska last Thanksgiving? Got a hell of a lot of laughs for an unfunny person.

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