Free Ken Kuhlken_Hickey Family Mystery 02 by The Venus Deal

swing over to the coast, finish the weekend in San Francisco.”
    “Aw, Tom, listen to yourself. ‘If things work out.’ When did they ever?” She turned to the sinkboard, where the pictures she’d taken out of the manila envelope lay, picked Cynthia Moon’s publicity photo, and held it out in front of him. “You think Lizzie and I want to hold your hand while you’re chasing this slut all over the state?”
    “Slut? You think that’s what she is?”
    “You bet she is.” Madeline laid down the photo, picked up the drawing, and displayed it before Hickey’s eyes. “Exhibit number two.”
    “It’s not her, Madeline. Look at the dark hair.”
    “Oh, she drew it of somebody else?”
    “I don’t know, babe,” Hickey sighed. “I’m going to find out.”
    “It’s Cynthia. Look, she’s as big as the man.”
    “What if it is? You think I oughta only work for somebody if they’re a virgin?”
    “Who’s paying you to work for her?”
    “Every man that walks into Rudy’s.”
    Madeline wheeled, grabbed the water faucet and cranked it on full, snatched up a drumstick and scrubbed it viciously. Hickey went to their bedroom and bath, packed a few things and stepped into Elizabeth’s room to say good-bye. She lay on her bed, propped against the headboard, her lips in a pout, shoulders hunched. There was a pencil in her hand and a drawing pad on her lap. In a few minutes she’d already sketched pine trees and the outline of a horse pulling a sleigh.
    “You’re tops,” Hickey said. He got out his billfold and handed her a ten. “Your mom’ll probably let you go meet your friends in a taxi.”
    “Thanks, Daddy.” It took a minute for her to fashion a smile. “Be careful,” she said, urgently as if he were shipping off to war.

Chapter Six
    The sky above Pacific Coast Highway was blue-black with patches of gray where the fog thinned enough to let traces of moonlight through. On the bluff north of La Jolla, Hickey pulled in to a clearing beside a stand of wind-bent pines, got out, and used a pocketknife to scrape the brown paint off the top of his headlamps.
    Relieved of having to peel his eyes at every inch of road, he flipped on the radio, tuned in “Dreamland,” the L.A. show that was Cynthia’s favorite. There were few vehicles on the two-lane highway. Now and then some bigshot in a V-12 sedan would blast by, highballing down from L.A. Hickey whooshed along about seventy mph, wondering if he could stay awake the whole fifteen-or-so-hour drive. Every few miles he’d catch up with a military convoy, a quarter mile of trucks, and have to lie behind until they got to a mile-long straightaway. On empty stretches, he yanked the hand throttle and whizzed along the sea cliffs, his elbow out the window, listening to a run of Basie and Duke Ellington tunes, and to Justine Brell, a new singer with Charley Wayne’s Orchestra, who sounded eerily like Madeline used to.
    Les Butterfield had discovered Madeline, not long after Hickey had joined Butterfield’s band on alto sax. They played the L.A. ballrooms, weekend and summer resorts on the coast and in the mountains around Lake Arrowhead and Big Bear. When Butterfield gave up music to concentrate on liquor and Hickey took over as bandleader, he booked them jobs from San Francisco to Agua Caliente across the border. With Madeline singing, they got all the work they could use. Her phrasing, gestures, and the passion in her eyes, as though she were on a quest, muddled Hickey’s brain, moistened his eyes, made him want to comfort her, protect her, give her the universe. She married him in Reno, June of 1926.
    For a couple years Tom Hickey felt like king of the mountain. He’d risen from shoe-shine kid and street punk to bandleader and won the girl. Everybody’s darling. Like Cynthia Moon was now.
    That was the thorn pricking Madeline’s jealousy. She didn’t worry about Hickey’s faithfulness. Sixteen years she’d been his only lover. But she hated Cynthia,