Free Jack and the Beanstalk (Matthew Hope) by Ed McBain Page B

a record player blaring a rock-and-roll tune. Sunny, I thought. I sat in one of the wicker chairs in the fern-cluttered corner nook where Sunny and I had earlier had our brief conversation, and I wondered why I felt it easier to talk to her mother, who—by strict arithmetical calculation—was far more distant in age from me than was her daughter.
    I still found it hard to believe that anyone her age could be so—well, there were no other words for it—well preserved. I know divorced men of my age who won’t dream of “dating” (a word I despise) anyone older than twenty-five. Thirty-eight is a dangerous age for a man. For a woman too, I suppose, but I’m not qualified to speak for the opposite sex. At thirty-eight, a man startslooking over his shoulder to see how closely the shadow of forty is following. Forty is a dread age. Forty means you’d better grow up fast if you’re going to grow up at all. Forty means taking stock of where you’ve been and where you’re going. At thirty-eight, forty is only two years away (in my case only eighteen months away) and forty means problems. You can go bald when you turn forty. Your teeth can start falling out, if they haven’t already been knocked out by a football player in Chicago. You can hurt your knees. Your back can start troubling you. Forty is a pain in the ass. My partner Frank had turned forty in April. He said it was easy. Just like falling off Pier Eight, he said. I didn’t know where Pier Eight was. I supposed it was in New York City someplace.
    But Veronica McKinney was fifty-seven years old. Fifty -seven! Almost twenty years older than I, and looking fit and trim and healthy and vital. Veronica McKinney made a person believe that forty would indeed be a piece of cake. Veronica McKinney had found the fountain of youth that Ponce de Leon had come down here looking for, and had drunk of it deeply, and was living proof that all of us terrified men trembling on the brink of middle age had nothing at all to fear. Veronica McKinney was a glowing promise of hope for the future, and that was reason enough to feel comfortable and secure and somehow content in her presence.
    The door to her private office opened. She stepped out into the vast living room and walked briskly to where I was sitting in the corner nook. She moved like a sprightly teenager; I couldn’t get over it. “Are you sure you wouldn’t like a drink?” she asked.
    “Work to do when I get back to the office,” I said.
    “I’d offer you a swim, but we haven’t got a pool. Do you have a pool, Mr. Hope?”
    “I have. And please call me Matthew, won’t you?”
    “Oh good,” she said, “I hate formality, it seems so out of place here on the ranch. Will you call me Veronica, then?”
    “Is that what your friends call you?”
    “Some of them call me Ronnie, but I find that more suitable for someone my daughter’s age. Veronica will do nicely, such as it is. I’ve never felt completely comfortable with it, I must admit. Back in the early forties, when I was a teenager, I began combing my hair like Veronica Lake—does she mean anything to you?”
    “Yes, of course,” I said.
    “Big movie star,” she said. “Used to wear her hair hanging over one eye, I forget which one now, either the right or the left—it was very sexy, actually. Made her look as if she’d just tumbled out of bed. I’d demonstrate, but my hair’s too short now. Anyway, I started imitating her. She was a blonde, remember? I began wearing my hair like hers, and talking in that low breathy voice she had—my friends must have thought I was crazy ,” she said, and suddenly began laughing. “But she was the only other Veronica I knew, and it was such a relief to be able to identify with someone . Adolescence is such a difficult time, isn’t it? I can understand why my daughter clings to it so tenaciously.”
    I said nothing.
    “Anyway,” she said, “you don’t want to listen to me prattling on about my green and