Ron Goulart - John Easy 03 - The Same Lie Twice Read Free

under his arm. He shook his head, saying to Easy, “Shit, it’s going to rain all over my Ann Sheridan collection.”
    Easy walked on. The hot rain slapped down all around him.
    Two frail teenage girls with straightdown hair were ducked under an awning in front of a defunct shoe repair shop. The frailer girl was vomiting on the stone doorstep, trying to mask her mouth with one thin hand.
    On the next corner a cowboy actor who’d had a series four years ago was standing with his arm around a second-rate agent and crying.
    When Easy came to the single dwarfed palm tree growing out of the sidewalk he turned down an alley. At its end stood a big brownstone warehouse. Easy reached out and rapped on the warehouse’s oaken door with a knobby fist. Set in the middle of the door was a small nameplate reading: Hagopian .
    The heavy door opened six inches and Hagopian’s hawk-nosed face looked out. “Hey, John Easy,” he said. “I don’t have my pants on.”
    “I can come back when you’re alone.”
    “I’m alone,” said Hagopian. “I was only explaining why I’m not bursting forth to greet you. Come on in.”
    The enormous warehouse was cool inside, filled with long high rows of green metal file cabinets. In a clearing among the cabinets was a scatter of Victorian furniture and a small refrigerator.
    Hagopian was a dark middle-sized man a few months from forty. His black hair was curly, his nose hooked, his dark eyes underscored with thin-fine circles. He was wearing a cotton paisley shirt and a pair of candy-stripe shorts. Slumped over the arm of the bentwood rocker he nodded Easy toward where a cable-stitch white sweater and a brand new pair of tennis shorts. “Like a beer?”
    “I guess it’s close enough to noon.” Easy bundled the tennis clothes and threw them to the dark TV Look writer. “Taking up tennis?”
    “Taking up with a girl who plays tennis,” said Hagopian. “Correction. She not only plays, she eats, breathes and shits tennis. This is the only way I can see her by day. Her name is Jem and she’s got the most terrific healthy tits you’ve ever seen. If they had an Olympic event just for nice-looking tits she’d take it.” He hopped, pulling on the tennis shorts.
    “It’s raining,” said Easy.
    Pointing a thumb toward the ceiling, Hagopian said, “So I heard, but it’s nice to have a private investigator friend who can confirm these things by astute first-hand observation.”
    “Meaning you can’t play tennis in the rain.” Easy got up out of the rocker and walked to the little white refrigerator.
    “Jem can play in rain, sleet, hail, falls of toads, meteor showers … she’s very keen on the sport,” said Hagopian. He pulled off his shirt, replacing it with the tennis sweater. “I don’t have to meet her until 1:30 so I can help you out until then.”
    “At least,” said Easy as he fetched two bottles of dark ale out, “a girl who spends all her waking hours on the courts won’t be borrowing your Jaguar, the way some of your ladies have.”
    Hagopian blinked, causing new wrinkles to ripple across his forehead. “My car. As a matter of fact, John, she loaned the Jag to the tennis pro at one of her clubs,” he said. “But that’s enough about my day-to-day struggles in the wacko capital of the world. What are you working on?”
    “A missing girl again.” Easy frowned. He located a bottle opener on the floor behind the refrigerator and opened the two ales.
    Hagopian dropped down onto a striped loveseat to tug on bulky white socks. “You don’t seem to be glowing with your usual zeal, John. After all, you met Jill during a missing girl case … how is she, by the way?”
    “Splendid,” said Easy. “It’s a friend of Jill’s who hired me to find his wife, guy named Jim Benning.”
    Hagopian dropped the tennis shoe he’d picked up. “Hey, John, you aren’t looking for Joanna?”
    Easy walked over to hand his writer friend one of the dark ales. “Yes. You know where