Read And 47 Miles of Rope (Trace 2) for Free Online Page B

know.”
    “That’s arguable,” Trace said. “Not that they’re mine, but that they’re children at all. I’ve always regarded them as particularly repugnant midgets. Now, drink your coffee or I’ll pour salad dressing on your hat.”
    Mrs. Hilda Tracy looked horrified for a moment, then bent “over her coffeecup with total concentration. Sarge leaned toward his son and whispered approvingly in his ear, “Firm, firm, very firm.”
    There was a clinking of glasses and Trace looked up as Bob Swenson began his speech of welcome to the assembled national sales force of Garrison Fidelity Insurance Company.
    “It’s a pleasure to welcome you all here,” he said, his actor’s voice resounding through the room over the speaker system. “And I think you’ll all agree with me that we owe a special vote of thanks for the arrangements to our lovely convention hostess, Miss Michiko Mangini.” He leaned over to his right and kissed Chico on the top of her head.
    She looked embarrassed. Walter Marks, watching, looked pained.
    Later, when Marks was reading off the names of everyone in the company who had sold more than a million dollars’ worth of life insurance in the past twelve months, Chico met Trace at the doorway to the banquet hall.
    “Ah, it’s the famous Miss Michiko Mangini,” Trace said. “Introduction, kiss on the head from the boss. What’s next?”
    “He had his hand on my knee all during lunch. I prefer the kiss on the head. I wish he hadn’t mentioned my name, though. Now all these insurance lunatics will be after me to find their lost children, complaining about crooked dealers, what can their wives use for sunburn?”
    “Two grand,” Trace said.
    “I still don’t know if it’s worth it,” Chico said. “How’s it going with you?”
    “Just splashing around,” he said. “Listen, if you feel really depressed, look at Sarge over there. He’s stuck with my mother. At least Swenson likes you.”
    “Trace, sometimes you have an absolute genius for making the sun shine.”
    “No extra charge. It’s the kind of wisdom we elderly develop naturally as the years go on.”

6
     
    Countess Felicia Fallaci’s home was fifteen minutes outside of Las Vegas, set back from a secondary road that sliced its way through the untidy, weed-cluttered desert. It was surrounded by ten-foot-high stone walls, topped with barbed wire, as was the large iron gate cut into the walls. Today the gate was wide open and Trace drove his white Mazda up the long straight drive and parked it next to Felicia’s burgundy Rolls Royce, a Jeep convertible, and a small and totally impractical English sports car, the kind with the foot pedals so close together that one normal-size shoe could cover clutch, brake, and accelerator all at once. Which always left the question of what to do with the other foot, since there was no room for it on the narrow little sliver of auto floor.
    The front door of the house was open too and Trace stepped into a hallway that passed through into the swimming pool and patio area, located between the two main wings of the house. Without bothering to ring or knock, he walked through the hall and out toward the pool, where a half-dozen, people were lounging around on chaises.
    Trace stopped in the open sliding doors and looked at Felicia. She was at the far end of the pool, lying on her back on a padded lounge chair, wearing only a very skimpy white bikini bottom that looked garish against the warm copper tan of her body. Her bare breasts were tanned the same color as the rest of her body, and they were very good breasts indeed, Trace thought. Four other people were on lounges near her and there were two more on the far side of the pool, sitting at a table, but Trace couldn’t see them because a sun umbrella was in the way.
    “Felicia,” Trace called.
    She sat up, saw him, waved, and came toward him.
    “Hi, Trace. You bring a bathing suit?”
    “No.”
    “No matter. Take off your clothes anyway.