One True Sentence: A Hector Lassiter novel (Hector Lassiter series Book 1)

by Craig McDonald

  “He was fairly antisocial,” Brinke said. “He hung on the margins. He eavesdropped. Stood off a little bit from the groups, but close enough he might be confused for participating. If he didn’t have his little magazine, I doubt he’d have had any friends.” Brinke smiled. “Even ‘dear friends,’ like Gertrude.” Brinke looked down at her clothes. “Would be very bad form for me to be seen wearing last night’s clothes.”

  Hector said, “My landlady is going out around noon — she already warned me I’d have to fend for myself for lunch. We’ll sneak you out then. It’s getting you back in here that has me concerned.”

  Brinke smiled. “Oh. I’m coming back, am I?”

  Hector sat down next to her. “Christ, I hope so.”

  “We look a little alike. You could say I’m your sister, visiting from the States.”

  “At the hours we’re apt to come and go? With the things she might overhear? I wouldn’t seem like much of a brother.”

  “We’re creative types. We’ll think of something.”

  ***

  Hector had dropped Brinke at her apartment to bathe and change. He walked from her building to Shakespeare and Company.

  Before Sylvia could come around the desk to hug him, Hector said, “I’m feeling cross toward you, Syl.”

  Sylvia winced a bit and said, “Why is that?”

  “You’ve been a loyal and supportive friend, ordering those magazines. I just wish you hadn’t shared them.”

  “Oh.” Sylvia said, “Who tipped you?”

  “It wasn’t her fault, but Brinke Devlin and before that, Molly.”

  “I didn’t know that you and Brinke are acquainted, Hector. But you should be.”

  “This time yesterday, we weren’t. Now I know her rather well.” Let Sylvia make of that what she would.

  “You two should get on well,” Sylvia said. “And Brinke will be discreet. About your writing, I mean.”

  “Sure. But Gertrude? Molly?”

  Sylvia winced again. “Gertrude too?”

  “And how. Last night at her salon…loudly.”

  “I’ll stop.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Hem’s somewhere in back,” she said. “He told me about last night. What in God’s name is going on? Who is doing this?”

  Hector said, “Search me, but stay away from snuff.”

  “That I can promise.”

  His anger spent, Hector plopped his hat on Sylvia’s head. She adjusted it to the angle she wanted and said, “Somewhere back there is also François Laurencin.”

  Hector said, “And what is a ‘François Laurencin’?”

  “A literary review publisher…Benchmarks. In light of recent events, he’s drawn some conclusions and he’s in a bit of a panic. I think he and Hem are talking. François is terrified.”

  “Not without reason,” Hector said. “And you’ve told me just enough to send me on my way.” He held out his hand and Sylvia handed him back his hat. Hector gestured with it at the front window. It was raining again and the rain slid down the glass, blurring the view of the street. He said, “Have you sold any more copies of Three Stories & Ten Poems?” It was Hem’s little book. Hector had incrementally bought five copies since its publication. He’d already reserved several copies of Hem’s other little book, In Our Time.

  Sylvia shook her head. “Not since last month’s.”

  “Hem ask about sales?”

  “He counts copies.”

  Hector nodded. He counted out fifteen francs. “Once again, we never made this transaction.”

  “You’ll take it with you?”

  Hector checked the passage to the back of the bookstore. “Nah. Just send it here.” He scribbled down Brinke’s address at Rue Madame.

  Sylvia said, “Message, or inscription?”

  “Sure. ‘From Hector Lassiter, with love, to Connor Templeton.’”

  Smirking, Sylvia said, “Fifty years from now, an inscription like that one could start a wild rumor.”

  Hector put on his hat and slipped on his gloves. He said, “You know what they say about any publicity.”

  ***

  Hector’s next stop was at his barber’s for a trim and a shave. As they were finishing up, Brinke slipped through the door, pushing it tightly closed against the pressure of the harder wind. She stomped the slush off her boots and shivered. She was dressed in trousers and a long masculine overcoat. She was wearing a man’s felt hat, not dissimilar from Hector’s own.

  “I’ve been following your itinerary,” Brinke said. “You spent much less time at Sylvia’s than I expected.”

  “I was ducking scared little magazine publishers,” Hector said.

  Brinke nodded. She held up her hands to model her outfit. “What do you think? Think it’s enough to fool your landlady?”

  “Maybe. And then she’ll just think I’ve switched sides.”

  Brinke was eyeing Hector’s haircut. She nodded at his barber. “He does very good work.” She took off the man’s hat she was wearing. Brinke ruffled her dark hair with her hand and said to the barber, “Will you give me the same cut, but a little fuller on top and longer in the front?”

  Hector said, “You sure about that?”

  Brinke said, “After seeing Alice last night, I’ve been…troubled. So, God yes, I’m sure. I need a change.”

  ***

  Brinke took his hand and moved it to the back of her head. “Here, feel.” He stroked her hair across the nape of her neck, feeling the shorter thick hair there ruffle under his fingers. “I like it very much,” Brinke said.

  “Me too.” He was surprised to find that was true. Her black hair was close-cropped but a little longer in the front, and parted left to right. “It’s a good thing you’ve got great ears,” he said. And good bone structure, too, he thought. He traced the line of her jaw with his thumb.

  “Just my ears?”

  “Everything. Perfect.” They were seated by the café’s window and the rain was steadier now, washing away the last of the slush.

  Brinke freshened their wine and raised her glass for a toast. She had selected the café. She said, “To amateur sleuths.” That reminded Hector and he checked his watch: an hour until they were due at Gertrude’s. Plenty of time to finish their wine and then walk the short distance to 37 rue de Fleurus.

  “The poison is official now,” she said. “I heard a newspaper vendor say so.”

  “Any suspects? Arrests?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Of course.” Hector realized he couldn’t keep his hands off Brinke’s hair. She seemed to like that. He said, “Ten francs says in a week half the women in Paris will be wearing their hair like yours.”

  “They don’t know my barber. And what is it with you and wagers? Must everything be reduced to odds?”

  Hector shrugged. He heard a scream and then saw cars veering to avoid collision. There were more screams and pedestrians jamming into the street, waving their hands to stop or redirect traffic. Hector said, “I think that’s Hem over there.” More screams.

  Brinke picked up her hat and coat and said, “We should see what’s happened.”

  Hector put on his jacket and hat and took her hand. “Yeah…pronto.”

  They crossed the street, weaving between stopped cars. Hector turned around sharply to get himself between Brinke and the possibility of her seeing the body in the street. The man was sprawled face down and at least two cars had passed over his body. The wheels of one had crushed his head and blood and brain matter was spreading out in the spaces between the slick cobbles.

  Hem was suddenly on the other side of Brinke and he guided Brinke and Hector to the curb and away from the crowd of onlookers. “Nothing we can do for him,” Hem said.

  “Who the hell was that?”

  “Laurencin. The guy who runs — ran — Benchmarks.”

  Brinke shot Hector a look. It said, Christ, another?

  Hector said to Hem, “You were with François? What the hell happened?�
��

  “Jostled, maybe,” Hem said, looking flustered. “I looked away, then heard this cry…then the first car hit him. It was crowded. Hell, he might have been pushed.”

  “Given his vocation I think we can make that leap,” Brinke said. “We should get to Gertrude’s,” she said to Hector.

  Hem blinked back the rain. “Stein’s?”

  “We’ve been invited,” Hector said.

  “I’ll come, too,” Hem said.

  “You’re going to need to make a statement to the police,” Hector said.

  “What, and say I saw nothing?” Hem shook his head. “I can’t do him any good now, Lasso.”

  Hector said, “If someone recognized you…? Well, fleeing the scene of a crime can look bad.”

  “Only in one of your stories,” Hem said. “Nobody saw me, let alone knows me. Let’s go to Gertrude’s now.”

  Hem suddenly narrowed his brown eyes at Brinke. Unthinkingly, he reached out and stroked the hair at the back of her neck. She hadn’t put on her hat yet. She leaned a bit into his touch, turning her head, like a cat, to lengthen her neck.

  Hem said, “Love the hair.”

  10

  Alice ushered them in past the stairs leading to the second floor where nobody, to Hector’s knowledge, had ever been invited. Hector had often tried to imagine what the private area of Gertrude’s living quarters must look like. Did the museum quality of the ground floor extend upstairs? Hem often joked about it, postulating some kind of Victorian lesbian-bordello motif with flocked wallpaper and swings…awash in brocade.

  Alice looked quizzically at Hem. Hector said, “Hem and I are a team. You know, like Holmes and Watson.”

  Simultaneously, Hem and Hector pointed at one another and said, “He’s Watson.”

  Hem grimaced and said, “Well, I do have the bum leg.”

  Frowning, Alice said, “Miss Stein’s other, invited guests are already here.” The little woman scowled at Brinke. “You’ve cut your hair.”

  Brinke ran her hand across the back of her neck. “Hector’s taking me to the Riviera when the weather breaks,” she said. “I thought something to get my hair off my neck and shoulders would put me in spirit of warmer places.”

  Hem said softly to Hector, “The Riviera? What, some rich aunt died?”

  “It’s news to me,” Hector said.

  Gertrude was just making her way back to her chair, leaning hard on her cane. Her heavy black skirt reached her feet. Hector had never seen Gertrude standing. He was always struck by her ponderous weight and that had given him a false impression of her overall size. Now he saw Gertrude wasn’t tall — hardly an inch or more than five feet. She wore a cardigan sweater over a high-collared, ruffled white blouse, secured with a silver brooch. Gertrude saw Hem and said, “Hemingway, we’ve been thinking about the christening. We think we should look to an Episcopalian church.”

  Hem nodded. “Yeah?” He reached for a plate of sweet cakes. Hector noticed the other guests weren’t eating or drinking: probably fearing poisoning.

  “Yes,” Gertrude said, smiling as Hem helped himself to the food. She settled into her chair and leaned her cane against the arm of her chair. “The Episcopalians seem…less dogmatic.”

  “That’s a thought,” Hem said. “We’re having dinner tonight at Nègre de Toulouse. You and Alice could come along and we could discuss it further.”

  Hector looked around the room. Estelle Quartermain, seated next to Gertrude, nodded back. Next to her sat a patrician-looking, slightly older man Hector took to be the mystery writer’s husband. He wore pince-nez.

  A mannish woman sat at Gertrude’s right hand. The woman was dressed in a tailored suit that looked to Hector to have been borrowed from a brother. The woman’s hair was cropped much closer than Brinke’s — even closer than Hector’s. She was smoking a pungent cigar. Hem introduced her to Hector as Joan Pyle, co-editor of Intimations. Joan wore a man’s white oxford shirt with a necktie. Hector suddenly felt underdressed. “Joan’s a brick,” Hem said. And another of the literary grandes dames de Paris, Hector figured.

  Hector gambled and shook the editor’s hand like a man’s. Joan, who seemed to approve, said, “Nicole will try to get here, but she’s dealing with a printing problem.”

  “Nicole Voivin is the other editor of Intimations,” Hem explained. Hector thought he was lucky Hem invited himself along, as Gertrude was often lacking in certain social graces. There was a presumption on her part that if Gertrude knew a person, that person automatically knew everyone else in Gertrude’s orbit. And Alice wasn’t about to do anything to undermine her lover’s self-centered presumptions.

  Brinke said, “I hope Miss Voivin is not alone.”

  “She’s being watched,” Joan said. “Georgette is close by…as is a friend of Georgette’s who boxes.”

  Seated next to Joan was a fiftyish, portly man with a thick, walrus like mustache. The man’s blond hair was graying and his eyes watery. His breath came in heavy wheezes — the result of surviving a long-ago mustard gas attack. Hector leaned down and clapped the Englishman’s arm. “Ford — it’s been a spell.”

  Ford Madox Ford nodded solemnly.

  Hector said, “Is Ezra coming, too?” The poet, Ezra Pound, Ford and some others had recently launched their own literary magazine dubbed the Transatlantic Review.

  In a soft, almost sibilant voice, punctuated by stops for deep intakes of breath, Ford said, “Ezra is wintering…in Rapallo. Presumably far enough away…to keep him safe…from all of this.”

  Ford always left Hector a little baffled. The utter image of a stodgy Brit, Ford nevertheless wrote some very fine tough books and stories…and maintained a string of beautiful young mistresses.

  Hem despised Ford, and did little to conceal it.

  Alice handed Hector and Brinke glasses of red wine and they took seats opposite Ford. Watching to see if they would at least trust her hospitality, Gertrude raised a hand to her mouth as if to say, “DRINK.”

  Alice pointedly didn’t arrange for a seat for Hem; she also didn’t offer Hem any wine.

  Hem picked up the piano bench and plunked it down directly opposite Gertrude. Hector handed Hem his untouched glass of wine. Hem sipped some of the wine, prompting a smile from Gertrude. Alice grudgingly went to prepare Hector another glass. Alice handed Hector the wine and he tapped glasses with Brinke and they both sipped —Brinke a bit warily. Hector drank deeply, as if it were water. Gertrude beamed again. Evidently encouraged by Gertrude’s approval, Hem said, “I’m helping myself to another of those little cakes.” Hem tossed one to Joan and another to Ford, both of whom caught the little cakes as if they were pitched vipers. “Eat up, Ford…Joan,” Hem said. “They’re quite tasty. Come on now — hell, they won’t bite you.”

  Frowning, they both carefully nibbled at the cakes, chewing with forced smiles.

  Gertrude nodded approvingly at Hem and said to the room, “You see now, our refreshments are quite safe. Now, I’m interested in our progress.”

  Hector sipped more of his wine. He said, “Progress?”

  “Yes,” Gertrude said. “What have my mystifiers learned since last night?”

  As if suddenly reminded about the body that had been sprawled there, Alice, carrying more glasses of wine for Ford and Joan Pyle, awkwardly stepped wide around that part of the floor.

  Looking rather annoyed by tiny Alice’s stutter-step, Gertrude said, “What have you gathered or learned since Estelle’s theory about poisoning has been borne out?”

  Hector served it up cold: “François Laurencin is dead, too. Just minutes ago, in fact. Someone shoved him into traffic.”

  Hem nodded solemnly. “It happened right next to me. Didn’t see who did the deed, but he’s dead for sure. Brains all over the pavement.”

  Her forearms resting on her knees, Gertrude bowed her head.

  Alice said to Hem, “And you did nothing?”

  “There was nothing to do, Alice,” Hector said. “François’s brains
were pulp before Hem, or anyone, could have reacted.”

  Slouched down in his chair, holding his half-eaten cake, Ford said so softly Hector had to strain to hear it, “This is inconceivable.” The English novelist struggled up to stand and paced a bit, feet at right angles to one another and hands thrust deep into his coat pockets. At six feet, Ford stood just a shade taller than Hem…but a few inches short of Hector. “We’re all…going to have to take measures…to protect ourselves,” Ford said in his wheezing voice. “All us editors, I mean.”

  Hem, perhaps sensing an opportunity, said to Ford — who preferred that younger writers actually call him Master, “With Ezra in Italy, you could probably use some help at the magazine. You should name me as a subeditor. It’ll keep me in position to watch your back…Master.”

  Gertrude said, “It’s a very fine idea.”

  Ford nodded and sat back down. He pulled at his mustache and finally said, “Yes. Yes…let’s do that. We’ll bring you aboard…Ernest.”

  Estelle Quartermain suddenly blurted out, “Thieves kill with daggers. Common thugs, like those in Hector’s stories, push people under cars. But the poison that killed that man in this room?” She waved a hand at the spot on the floor that Alice had stepped around. She said, “That murder took planning. Knowledge. Cunning and sophistication.”

  Hector, reaching for his cigarettes, said, “My guys would never throw someone under a car. That’s simply amateurish, or killing on a whim. And the only cunning or sophistication last night’s escapade required was a library card and a zeal for reading your flavor of mystery books, Estelle. You’ve taught all the old biddies about cyanide and boiling flypaper for its arsenic content and the like.”

  Brinke pulled out her own cigarette case and shared Hector’s match. As he held the match for his companion, Hector watched Estelle watching Brinke. The British mystery writer’s gloved hand strayed to her own hair. Brinke said, “To my mind, the key murder here — insofar as we might quickly learn something — is the killing of Lloyd Blake. He was murdered in his own bed. He was naked. I’ve heard a few things about that killing…things trickling back through authorities. The fact is, the murderer was probably taken to Lloyd’s bed. So we’re looking for a woman.”