Free The Books of Fell by M.E. Kerr Page B

they’re in some stupid club.
    “I see.”
    He stirred his coffee. We both checked out the lovers. They were still at it. Pingree met my eyes and we grinned.
    Then Pingree said, “I wish I’d been more like you when I was growing up. I was all caught up in what it meant to be a Pingree, what was expected of me. My father drilled that into me. I’ve done a lot of bad things to Ping, but I’ll never do that to him. I’m surprised Fern isn’t more sympathetic in this regard. She hates snobbery, too, but she’s dead set on Ping’s going to Gardner. Ping can’t conquer that phobia of his. We’ve tried hypnotism, everything. I think Fern thinks he’s faking it.”
    I said, “I saw
Arizona Darkness
last night.”
    He looked across at me. “That belongs to the Stileses.”
    “Delia Tremble’s their au pair.”
    “Ah! For the twins.”
    “Yes. We wondered why your wife named something
Arizona Darkness
that’s this ocean under this hot sun?”
    “She chooses very unusual titles for her paintings. I think that one had to do with Jerome, Arizona. Oh, they all do, really.”
    “What does Jerome, Arizona, have to do with your wife?”
    Pingree ground out his cigarette in the ashtray. “Her grandfather was there in World War Two, long before she was born. They had one of those internment camps there for Japanese-Americans. Our version of concentration camps. We didn’t gas them the way the Germans did the Jews. Didn’t work them. But we confined them. They were our prisoners. Only Japanese-Americans were put through that. Fern can’t forget it.”
    I remembered watching a program about it on TV.
    “I didn’t even know she was Japanese.”
    “Her father is. Not her mother. Her mother’s Irish-American.”
    I was remembering the barracks in the field, in the painting she called
Smiles We Left Behind Us.
    “Then came Hiroshima, another shattering blow to Asians. And Vietnam. Fern has a very melancholy nature as a result. I fall in love with very melancholy women. My first wife was the same way.”
    I liked him. I wasn’t sure why. Maybe because he never talked down to me.
    He called for the check.
    “There’s so little time,” he said. “You know that, don’t you, Fell?”

chapter 13
    On the way to the Surf Club Monday night, Delia Tremble said she wanted a frozen custard. I stopped at Frosty’s, and she passed two dollars to me and said, “Get yourself one, too, Hunk!” I took the money.
    I said, “This doesn’t mean you can have your way with me later.”
    She had that lilting laugh I’d grown to love in just forty-eight hours. The sky was deep blue with an orange ball up in it, and a thousand stars. We were headed down to the club to dance outside under them. She smelled of roses, or she reminded me of how roses smell. I didn’t know which.
    When I came back with two chocolate frozen custards dripping down my fingers, she said, “Why do you carry a gun?”
    “Why do you snoop into my glove compartment?”
    “You go first,” she said.
    “It’s my dad’s gun.”
    It was his.38 Smith & Wesson, never loaded, with ivory butt plates and an owl carved into it, the eyes made of two real rubies. Years ago some Mafia character’d given it to him as thanks for following his wife around.
    She said, “But he’s dead, you said.”
    I got behind the wheel. “I can’t throw it out or turn it in.”
    “So you keep it in your car?”
    “My dad did, too. He said you should never keep a gun in the house. A lot of accidents with guns happen in policemen’s houses, did you know that?”
    “No.” She was licking the frozen custard off the side of the cone. It was sexy the way she did that.
    “A lot of homicides happen in policemen’s homes, too,” I said. “Their guns are always there.” I put a napkin around the bottom of my cone. It wasn’t going to do any good. It was a hot night. I was glad to be with her.
    “Now your turn,” I said. “What were you looking for in my glove