“That one’s mine,” said Phil, nodding at the desk to our right.
“Fine,” I said moving to the table, picking up the envelope and opening it. There was a check inside for three hundred dollars signed by Joan Crawford. There was also a handwritten note:
Good luck and sincere thanks. Should Mildred Pierce prove as successful for my career as I pray it will, it will, in no small way, be due to your efforts.
J.C.
I put the note back in the envelope with the check. Later we would open an account at the bank for Pevsner and Peters with the three hundred dollars from me and the same amount from Phil.
The wall behind my desk was big enough for my Salvador Dalí painting of the mother and two babies in addition to the photograph of me, Phil, our dad and our dog Kaiser Wilhelm. I’d put them up later.
Jeremy had agreed to our paying the same rent I had been paying Shelly for my closet, with the understanding that if and when we could afford it, the rent would go up.
“But not significantly,” Jeremy had assured us.
We all stood there for a few seconds, and then Phil moved to the window and looked down. I knew he was seeing the alley and small empty lot behind the Farraday.
“It’s great, Jeremy, thanks,” I said.
Phil nodded in agreement, turning from the window and looking around the room. His world had changed. I think with Ruth gone, that’s what he wanted. I didn’t know how we would work together—or if we could work together. We would see.
We stood silently, not knowing what to say.
The phone on Phil’s desk rang. He picked it up, hesitated and said, “Pevsner and Peters,” and then, “Yes. Right.” He took his notebook, the same one he had been using as a cop, put it on the desk and pulled out a pencil. “Yes,” he continued writing. “I’ve got it. We can get there in …”
Phil looked at his watch and then at me.
I put out both hands palms up to indicate that it was up to him.
“… about an hour,” Phil finished.
He hung up the phone, looked down at his notebook and said, “Harry Blackstone wants to see us.”
“The magician?” Violet asked excitedly. “The one who makes the lightbulb fly around the audience?”
“Yes,” said Phil.
My brother and I looked at each other.
We were in business.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook onscreen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
copyright © 2003 by Stuart M. Kaminsky
This edition published in 2012 by MysteriousPress.com/Open Road Integrated Media
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Mildred Pierced: A Toby Peters Mystery Page 21