Husbands And Lap Dogs Breathe Their Last by David Steven Rappoport Page B

Please sit down. You, too, Mandrake. I could make some tea.”
    “Don’t trouble yourself. It’s only us,” Otto said. He sat on the sofa. Cummings sat near him. Mandrake sat to the side on an ottoman.
    “Why don’t you start by telling me why you threw me out so abruptly the last time we met?” Cummings asked.
    “You are direct, aren’t you?” Otto said.
    “Yes,” Cummings said.
    “I’m afraid my ability to schedule isn’t what it should be.”
    “Anything else?”
    “It is possible I may not have told all there is to tell.”
    “I’ve already determined that,” Cummings responded.
    “Have you? You see, you’re exactly what I need. Please help me. I’ll pay you your usual fee.”
    “Do you mean help you search for the Craddock Brooch?” Cummings asked.
    Mandrake said something unintelligible.
    “Oh, dear, Mandrake tells me we must leave now, or we’ll be late for Beatrice.”
    “I thought we were going to talk.”
    “We are. In the car.”
    “Where are we going?”
    “Here and there. Appointments. Errands. I couldn’t cancel. You see? Efficiency. Accomplishing multiple tasks at the same time.”
    Cummings did not wish to go, but in view of the mention of money he felt he had little choice. He owed it to his household finances.
    “Who’s Beatrice?” Cummings asked.
    “‘O lady who causes my hope to have life ...’“ Otto replied, quoting the Divine Comedy as he led Cummings to the street. There, they got into the back seat of a very old and very large Rolls Royce. Mandrake put a chauffeur’s cap over his yarmulke and climbed into the driver’s seat. He pulled away from the curb recklessly and surged down the street with the thrust of a derecho.
    Otto kept up a steady chat about this and that. They drove for some time into the outer reaches of suburban Chicago. Cummings did his best to breathe evenly and not fearfully clutch the armrest in response to Mandrake’s driving.
    “Let’s discuss business, shall we? I’ll be happy to work with you as a consultant,” Cummings said finally, interrupting Otto’s stream of small talk. “I’m not a licensed investigator. I am merely providing informal, personal consulting services. You may pay me an honorarium of one hundred dollars an hour. I’ll invoice you every week.”
    “Done,” Otto responded.
    “What help are you looking for? Are we still taking about a search for the brooch or something else?”
    “As I said the other day, the brooch is valuable, and the Society wants to make sure it’s recovered.”
    “I see. And why did you leave me a fake blackmail note at the crime scene?”
    “What do you mean?” Otto said, startled. “I certainly did not.”
    “Yes, you did. I found a letter addressed to you that demanded cash in return for silence about unspecified acts, a letter that miraculously survived the fire. Even if it were genuine, and it somehow had passed through the flames — perhaps by soaking up just enough water from a fire hose to avoid incineration — a careful search must have been conducted by the arson investigators. It would have been seen. You put it there several days after the blaze, assuming I would do my own investigation.”
    “All right,” Otto conceded. “I suppose I owe you an explanation.”
    “I’d say so. In fact, I’d say the number of explanations you owe me is rising.”
    They turned off the highway into Chicago’s suburbs. This farmland that once surrounded the city is now mostly shopping centers. These are nestled between treeless housing tracts with cul-de-sacs and bucolic names referencing displaced Indian tribes or eighteenth-century English aristocracy or the creeks and rivers that fed the farmland that was subsumed to build the homes.
    They turned onto a road leading to an oasis of acreage that appeared to be a horse farm, an assumption confirmed by a sign that read “Paradise Equine Center.” Mandrake parked the car beside a barn.
    “Is Beatrice a horse?” Cummings