Free Ed McBain_Matthew Hope 12 by Gladly the Cross-Eyed Bear

concerned about ‘old times’ when you brought the copyright suit.”
    “All right, damn it, I was afraid we’d
lose
it, all right?”
    “That’s not what you told me ten minutes ago. You told me you were feeling confident…”
    “I was lying. I was scared shitless. I was sure Santos would eventually tell the Tolands to go right ahead with their bear.”
    “Then what was all that business about Kinky?”
    “I
was
working on Kinky when the phone rang. As insurance. For when Santos decided
against
me.”
    “In other words, your frame of mind was anything
but
confident, isn’t that right?”
    “Whose side are you on, Matthew?”
    “I can’t help you if you lie to me, Lainie.”
    I’m sorry.
    Head bent. Little cockeyed girl in tight jeans and braless T-shirt, staring down at the hands in her lap now. Lemonade on
     the drawing table, alongside her “insurance” sketches for a new stuffed animal.
    “All right, what happened next?”
    She does not answer for a moment. She keeps staring at her hands. Then she sighs heavily, and looks up at me. Bee-stung lips
     slightly parted. I suddenly think it’s a long time since Patricia and I made love. I put the thought out of my mind. It occurs
     to me that Lainie fully understands her cockeyed appeal to men. It further occurs to me that I had better be careful here.
    “Have you ever been aboard
Toy Boat?”
she asks.
    “No.”
    “Well, she’s a marvelous
rig,
as Brett calls her, making her sound like a little
runabout,
when she’s actually a ninety-four-foot gaff-rigged yawl with three beautifully outfitted double staterooms and a crew cabin
     forward…”
    Walkway lights illuminate the dockside area, and there is a single lamppost at the far end of the parking lot, where Lainie
     parks the Geo. She has dressed casually but elegantly for this meeting, perhaps because she knows the boat, and doesn’t want
     to be intimidated by its teaked and varnished grandeur, or possibly because she truly believes Brett may be about to offer
     a real solution to their problem, in which case she wants to look and feel festive when they break out the celebratory champagne.
     So she’s wearing white-laced, blue Top-Siders—she knows the rules of boating—with flaring, bell-bottomed, blue silk slacks
     and a white silk boat-necked shirt over which she’s thrown a blue scarf in a tiny red-anchor print. The red frames of her
     eyeglasses are the color of her lipstick. The gold of the heart-shaped pinky ring echoes her blond hair, worn loose tonight.
     The hair catches glints of light from the lamppost as she steps out of the car and strides toward the Toland boat. She feels
     hopeful. She sometimes thinks her entire life, from the moment she learned her eyes weren’t like those of other little girls,
     has been one long battle—but now there may be a happy ending in sight.
    There are lights burning in the saloon.
    From the bottom of the gangway, she calls, “Hello?” Silence.
    “Brett?” she calls.
    “Lainie?” a voice says, and she sees Brett coming topside from the short ladder leading below. He is wearing white cotton
     slacks and a loose-fitting white buttonless cotton top slashed in a V over his chest. He hits a switch someplace on his right
     and light spills onto the cushioned cockpit area where she now sees that a bucket of ice, a pair of tumblers, and several
     bottles of liquor—she cannot read the labels yet—have been set out on the teak table. “Come aboard,” he calls. “I’m so glad
     you decided to come.”
    She has been aboard this boat many times before, for cocktail parties, small dinner parties, casual lunches, an occasional
     sail out on the Gulf. The saloon below is furnished with comfortable couches, and glass-fronted lockers that enclose a television
     set, a VCR, and a CD player. The dining table seats ten comfortably, and whenever she’s been here for dinner or lunch, it
     has been set with Wedgwood china, Waterford crystal, and damask