Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 150, Nos. 5 & 6. Whole Nos. 914 & 915, November/December 2017
- Автор: Фузилли Джим, Харрис Шарлин
- Год: 2017
- Язык: английский
- Год: Dell Magazines
- ISBN: 0013-6328
- Жанр: Другие детективы
Электронная книга - «Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 150, Nos. 5 & 6. Whole Nos. 914 & 915, November/December 2017». Краткое содержание книги:
I pull into a parking space in front. The windows are plastered with signs: We sell Lotto tickets! Live bait! Fishing poles! Spare engine parts! And even a few groceries! “Okay, what numbers should I play for you, Dad?”
“Jo, you never let anyone else buy your Lotto tickets. That’s the first rule.”
Oh, of course. I should have known this. Dad has been buying one-dollar lotto tickets twice a week for years. “What’s the second rule?”
“Believe that you’re going to win. See it in your head. Feel that you’ve already won.” He opens the car door, grasps his cane, swings his legs over the edge of the seat, and gets out.
“Any other rules?” I ask as we start up the steps to the front porch. He has trouble with steps sometimes. He grips the railing with his free hand, leans on the cane with the other.
“Third rule: Never allow yourself to get into a situation where you’re so dependent on others that winning the lottery becomes your salvation.”
I really dislike what that implies. But before I can ask him about it, the front door of the shop opens and Dad greets the old guy who hurries out, a fishing pole in one hand, a bag of bait in the other. “Hey, Charlie.”
“Max! Good to see you.” Charlie shakes Dad’s hand like a man pumping water. “Looks like you’re getting around fine. We miss you on our fishing excursions.”
“I may try them again. Give me a call when you’re planning another one.”
“You bet. Anne won’t like it one damn bit, though,” he says with a laugh.
Dad dismisses the remark with a wave of his hand. “Don’t know why she’d care.”
“She thinks you might fall overboard.”
Dad laughs. “Yeah, right. Have you met my daughter, Charlie?”
He introduces us and we chat for a few minutes about their last fishing trip together and what a hissy fit Anne had about it. “She carried on like your dad was nonfunctional,” Charlie remarks.
Issues, like I said. Anne has issues. “She obviously exaggerates,” I say.
“I’m feeling the lottery burn, Charlie,” Dad says, changing the subject. He’s apparently uncomfortable talking about Anne.
“Just bought mine.” Charlie pulls a ticket out of his shirt pocket and wags it in the air. “Someone’s got to win, right? Gotta get moving, Max. Nice meeting you, Jo.”
“You too, Charlie.”
I open the door for Dad. “Why does Anne throw a hissy fit when you go fishing?”
He shrugs. “She seems to have the idea that I should be housebound.”
“That sucks, Dad. You should get out fishing as often as you can, be with other people.”
“So I can listen to her bitch and gripe about it for days? No, thanks.”
His cane taps along the floor as he makes his way to the counter, his shoulders hunched, his gait a shuffle. He moves through narrow aisles of fishing hooks, poles, weights, buckets, all the paraphernalia of what he loves to do. It infuriates me that Anne puts up a stink when he goes fishing with his friends. I immediately entertain the idea of moving him into my place today.
But why should he move? The house belongs to him. Anne should move out. He can divorce her, and I’ll use his place as my home base until I can find a job that doesn’t require as much travel. And until that happens, I’ll hire someone to come in, just like I told him earlier.
A plan. I’m one of those people who needs a plan.
2
“Afternoon, Max,” says the cheerful young woman behind the counter. “Fishing supplies or the lottery?”
“Lottery, Barb.”
“Random, or do you have numbers?”
“Both.”
“Okay, random first.” She taps at a machine, a ticket slides out, she hands it to Dad. “Numbers.”
“Five, six, seven, eight, sixteen, thirty-one.”
“Aren’t those the ones you usually play?”
“Yup.”
It takes me a moment to realize these are birthdates — his, mom’s, and mine.
“Here you go, Max. Two bucks for two tickets for February tenth. And good luck! You’ll know by eleven tonight if you’ve won five hundred and fifty million! Just remember me when, huh?”
He laughs. “Absolutely.” He drops a pair of ones on the counter, checks both tickets, slips them in his shirt pocket, and steps aside so I can buy a ticket. “Honey, I’ll be over in the fishing-pole area.”
I buy my ticket and when I turn to look for Dad, Anne is coming through the door in her bar-management attire. She has the body of a much younger woman, slender with curves in the right places, and dresses like she’s half her age — skintight jeans, a pale blue shirt with the name of the bar written across the pocket. She’s a blonde, one that comes from a bottle, and wears her curly hair chin-length. At one time, she was undoubtedly attractive, but now she looks weathered and used in spite of the plastic surgery she had before she met Dad. Traces of that surgery are evident around her mouth and eyes, where the skin looks as tight as her jeans.
She’s with one of her employees, a younger woman I recognize who works the bar but whose name always eludes me. They’re laughing about something on her phone. When Anne glances up, she sees me and struts over.
“Jo.”
“Hey, Anne.”
“I thought you and Max were having lunch.”
“We did. Now we’re buying lotto tickets.”
She rolls her dark eyes and leans toward me, touching my arm. “Between you and me? It’s not just the lotto tickets anymore. It’s scratch-offs, Powerballs, Megas, Fantasy Fives. He’s got a problem, Jo.”
I touch her arm in the same spirit with which she touched mine, that woman-to-woman stuff that teenage girls sometimes use when I’m evaluating them. “Between us, Anne? You’ve got a problem. Why do you put up a fuss about him going fishing with his buddies? Why don’t you ever take him out for lunch or dinner or just out for a drive? You can’t even drive him to a doctor’s appointment. He has to take a cab. And why do you bitch at him for a few nicks in the paint? And since you don’t clean the house and he can’t exactly do it hobbling around with his cane or in a wheelchair, why the hell should you care if I pay for a cleaning woman to come in once a week?”
Her dark eyes widen and she rocks back, away from me. “Wow, where did all that come from?”
“Right from the heart,” I snap. “In fact, I think it’s time for Dad to move in with me or, even better, for you to move out. It’s his house. Your name isn’t even on the deed.”
Her nostrils flare, blood rushes up her neck and into her face, turning that leathery brown skin even darker, and her hand flies toward my face to slap me. But my reflexes are fast and I grab her wrist and jerk her toward me, our faces so close I can smell the booze on her breath. “Don’t screw around with me, Anne.”
She wrenches free of my grasp. “Let’s see what Max has to say about all this.”
She marches away from me, swinging her tanned skinny arms, and I follow her into the aisle where Dad is examining a box of fishing weights. “Max,” she snaps. “Your daughter is way outta line and you need to set her straight fast.”
Dad glances up, surprised to see Anne here, and fear shadows his eyes. It shocks me to see it, to realize that Dad is actually afraid of his wife. “What’re... you doing here?”
“Didn’t you hear what I just said?” Anne demanded.
“My God, Anne, lower your voice,” Dad says.
“We’re going outside,” I tell her, touching Dad’s arm. “Where the three of us can talk without disturbing anyone else.”