Free The Brink of Murder by Helen Nielsen

very hungry.”
    “That’s interesting,” Simon said. “Do you lunch together often?”
    “No,” Pucci said. “Barney wanted to talk about the beach project. You know—progress report. I told him we would pour the first-layer foundations the following Monday and we did. I told him we would also finish the parking-lot the following Monday and we did. You can write cheques on Vincent Pucci’s word. Everybody in the construction business knows that.”
    “Is the project the only thing you talked about?”
    “What else? A little football, maybe. That’s what I like to talk about with Barney Amling. Football. I had a bundle riding on the Rams once. He told me why they couldn’t win and I switched my bet. Cleaned up. A banker who knows football, now that’s the kind of man I like.”
    “Did he come to Emilio’s alone? I mean, did he have a woman with him?”
    “A woman?” Pucci cried. “What do you mean—a woman?”
    “A woman—young and attractive, probably. You see, I don’t exactly represent Barney Amling. I represent his wife.”
    “She’s got ideas about Barney?”
    “She’s got ideas.”
    Pucci looked at his bodyguard and rolled his eyes in amazement. “How do you like that? Barney Amling? How does that grab you, Louis?”
    “It grabs me,” Louis said. “You never can tell.”
    “You never can tell about them egghead WASPs,” Pucci said. “Of course, he was always a friendly guy and real polite to ladies. I introduced him to my daughter, Veronica, once. She was walking around like we had eggs on the rug for days. ‘Groovy,’ she said. ‘For an older man, Papa, he is real groovy.’ Kids know about these things, I guess. Hey, Drake, you think Barney’s wife is trying to get a divorce?”
    “Not if she can help it,” Simon said.
    “That’s good. I don’t like to do business with a banker whose wife is getting a divorce. It don’t look good.” Then Pucci slapped his stomach with both hands and emitted a staccato laugh. “Women,” he said. “Always getting ideas. I’ll tell you what’s wrong. Barney works too hard and she feels neglected. Now here’s what I’m going to do. I’ve got a nice place down in Baja. You can’t even get to it except by private plane. When I see Barney I’m going to tell him he’s working too hard and should take a couple of weeks off to go down there with his wife. No kids. Just his wife. A woman needs some romance once in awhile. Never too old for romance. Even my wife, at her age, likes perfume and flowers and sometimes a trip to Europe. Barney should take his wife with him on those business trips instead of that secretary—” He paused, suddenly moved by his own words. “That secretary,” he repeated. “Say, you don’t think she’s been making a play for the boss, do you?”
    “It happens,” Simon said.
    “Yeah, it happens. You wait. I’ll talk to Barney when he gets back. But if you see him first, you tell him the beach project is right on schedule. Right on the nose.”
    “Which project is that?” Simon asked.
    Pucci beckoned to Louis. “Give Mr Drake one of the cards from the project,” he said. “It’s going to be the best one yet. Do you know, Drake, that, sooner or later, everybody wants to live by the ocean? The old people feel time creeping up on them and think, Jesus, we don’t have much time and we never lived by the ocean yet, so they pay three or four times the rent they usually pay just to have a few months on the beach. The young people are just as bad. The houses I sell are chicken feed compared to what I’m going to make on these apartments, if I don’t have trouble with screwballs.”
    “Screwballs?” Simon echoed.
    “Ecology nuts. College kids and old ladies. Zoning commissions I can handle, but these kids and old ladies!”
    “They can’t be bought, is that it?”
    “Bought! They don’t know the meaning of money. How can they? The kids are all living off their parents and the old ladies off annuities.