Murder on the Orient Espresso(10)

‘You weren’t saving it for someone?’ As I sat down, I saw Zoe swivel back around toward Pavlik.

‘More likely saving it from someone,’ the princess said. ‘I’m Prudence, by the way, and my seatmate is Grace.’

Prudence/Princess Dragomiroff and Grace/Greta Ohlsson. Missy deserved a gold star in my alliteration/memory-trick book.

I shook the princess’s ring-covered hand. ‘Maggy,’ I said, before turning to Grace. ‘Are you both writers?’

‘Aspiring writers,’ Grace said.

‘Some of us aspire more than others,’ the princess said sourly. ‘Grace hasn’t written a word since the last Mystery 101.’

‘I teach kindergarten in Detroit,’ Grace explained, unruffled. ‘I’m afraid the little ones take up all my—’

‘A word of advice, Maggy?’ Prudence interrupted. ‘Watch out for Zoe.’

‘Zoe? What do you mean?’ I knew exactly what she meant, but I wanted to hear it from her.

‘She means,’ Laurence Potter said dryly, ‘that the woman is a venal fly trap.’

Venal, not venus. ‘As in—’

‘As in a mercenary snare of male privates,’ Potter provided. ‘Or must I spell it out for you?’

He pretty much had. But since ‘innocent’ had gotten me this far: ‘I thought Zoe was married, at least until recently.’

A snort from Prudence/Princess, but it was Grace/Greta next to her who answered. ‘Ignore these two, Maggy. We all owe Zoe – and Missy, too, as of last year – a debt of gratitude for spearheading this conference.’

‘Ah, yes,’ Potter said, lifting up his magazine to eye level again. ‘Though the job does come with certain … benefits.’

Grace spread her hands. ‘I’d like to know who amongst us doesn’t come to these events partly to meet legends like Rosemary Darlington.’

‘Legends.’ The word came from behind the magazine.

‘Whatever you think of the new book, Larry,’ Grace said, ‘you must admit Rosemary has written nearly fifty novels over the years, most of them very good. And now she’s reinvented herself for a new generation. That makes Rosemary Darlington a legend in my mind.’

‘And her own, if nowhere else.’ Potter lowered his copy of Publishers Weekly and shook his head sadly. ‘There was a time I thought Rosemary Darlington had genuine talent, but that woman could never have written this current pile of excrement.’

‘Just because you don’t like the romance genre,’ Prudence snapped again, ‘doesn’t make it “excrement.”’

‘Absolutely right.’ The magazine came down and the gloves, apparently, off. ‘I’ve been unfair to excrement.’

Whoa, boy. This was getting fun. ‘You’re so knowledgeable,’ I said as naively as a bedazzled fourth grader to Potter. ‘Do you write, yourself? Novels, I mean.’

‘Yes, Larry,’ Prudence said, sticking out her neck like an elderly, but remarkably aristocratic, chicken. ‘Do tell us what you’ve authored.’

‘Happily,’ Potter said as the bus lurched away from the curb. ‘In fact, I have a book in the works right now.’

‘Are you—’ I started, but the bus driver slammed on his brakes, sending me flying forward. Potter put his arm out to keep my head from hitting the back of Markus’s seat, managing to buff my breasts thoroughly with the back of his forearm in the process.

‘Thank you,’ I said automatically as I righted myself and slid the spaghetti strap of my dress back onto my shoulder.

‘He should be thanking you,’ I heard the princess mutter.

‘What the bloody hell is this idiot driver doing?’ Laurence Potter demanded as the door of the bus opened.

‘Sorry, sorry.’ The curly-haired young man I’d seen outside the hotel earlier that day climbed aboard.

‘Oh, that’s just swell,’ I heard Potter mutter. ‘The merely excruciating has managed to become the intolerable.’





FOUR





‘Do you know him?’ I asked Potter, ignoring the fact I’d seen the two of them together.

‘Just another sycophant.’

‘Better honey than vinegar,’ the man next to Markus said. Sporting a small mustache, blonde hair slicked back, he looked a bit like the actor Michael York in his cream-colored three-piece suit. His hands nervously circled the brim of a matching hat in his lap.

‘But they said at the registration desk that the event wasn’t filled to capacity.’ Potter’s ‘sycophant’ was arguing his case to the bus driver.