Red Rainbow by G Johanson (top books of all time TXT) 📗

“I didn’t get every word, just enough to know it’s boiling over,” Marcella said. Patience knew that Marcella stripped for a mix of men, including regular spots at German private parties, where the mood was foul. Patience had thought stripping was bad enough, and that was when she thought that it was part of a stage show before she quickly learnt it was grubbier than that. It was back rooms up close and personal – which was how Marcella found things out, the one good thing about it. Patience kept her own counsel, reminding herself that it was Marcella’s life and her choice. Not a good one, in Patience’s opinion, but she was so grateful for her help and her friendship in her moment of need that she knew better than to offer well-meaning unsolicited advice on this score. If she wouldn’t quit when her lover asked her to, she was hardly likely to listen to her.

“This lady here, the Oracle, knows the woman responsible,” the Love Phantom said.

“I gave away her name,” Marcella said.

“I knew it already. She’ll be one of the 87 if they find her,” Hector warned.

“They’re not going to look here, are they? Is there a jacuzzi I can wreck? I saw him pass me by on my way here and he didn’t even give me a lift,” Scrambler joked, mugging to the others.

“You’re not wrecking a third car, sorry. We need to come up with a plan quick, guys. The woman in question who did this, who we all know is Florence Pascoe – she’s not likely to come forward, is she?” the Love Phantom said, this rhetorical question directed to Patience, the one of them who knew Florence a little.

“I would guess not.”

The discussion went back and forth, the Love Phantom trying to find a way to use Scrambler to disrupt the transmission of the names from the Vichy offices to the Gestapo. Hector believed this would be typed – Scrambler had wrecked typewriters before, but the simpler the machine, the harder it was to break.

“Bad news, Hector. I’m going to have to ask Plague to walk around your building tomorrow. If Chablis didn’t tell you, Plague is one of us, a key member, but she doesn’t join us. To be around her is to be very, very ill,” the Love Phantom explained.

“Surgically attached to the toilet, both ends,” Scrambler said, adding more colour to the description.

“That won’t stop this from happening,” Hector said.

“I know. We’re playing for time. I’ll phone up some of my German contacts, arrange lunch and try and persuade them that we’re looking into it, the sickened local populace,” the Love Phantom said.

“Plenty of us are sickened by it,” Hector said.

“Right and wrong have been a mess for a long time now. It’s almost over, we can get through this,” the Love Phantom said determinedly.

Florence was excited to leave the house again – as if she hadn’t been anyway – with Hilaire after 11pm. Hilaire had no choice but to let her come along. She wouldn’t find the fox without the bloodhound. Florence identified that their quarry was not at the house she’d been at the last time they conducted a search. It took a long time on foot to reach the very, very nice houses by the river.

“This area’s improved a lot,” she commented to Hilaire.

“The workers were driven out of here years ago.”

“It looks much better, so good. I don’t know. I commit one small massacre and it has all of these implications. It makes me think – not much, but a little,” Florence mused.

“You’re too passé about death.”

“Blasé. And it comes for us all. We’ve less in front of us than we have behind us.”

“By a fair margin,” Hilaire said, gritting her teeth and letting the correction slide. Of course that was the right word, but she was a little stressed about the situation, unlike the energy cannibal, vampire, succubus creature FUCK next to her. Who she was not mad with at all.

“That one there, upstairs. Two other people with her. You going to do your trick with the door and smash this one in?”

Hilaire didn’t answer, letting her actions speak for her. Fiddling with locks telekinetically was often a performance. A successful one this time, though it took long enough that another curfew breaker out with his dog spotted them. He didn’t see them enter the property. Just as Hilaire thought, these were flats, this confirmed as they stood outside another locked door upstairs. She knocked on the door, Florence tutting disappointedly. Nobody answered, prompting Florence to knock louder after 30 seconds.

“Who’s there?” A male voice, fairly young at a guess, his question very reasonable under the circumstances.

“We come in peace. We want to help somebody we know is here,” Hilaire said amiably. She had to be extra nice as, despite her promises to behave, Florence was the ultimate loose cannon.

“Patience Condeh,” Florence said.

“Who are you?” he asked.

“Just mention Deveral Meyer’s theatre to her. I’m sure she’ll put it together,” Florence said with a smile.

“Just a minute,” he said. He opened the door much quicker than that. Presumably, he’d been in bed, his shirt unbuttoned, the belt on his trousers hanging loose, his fly not buttoned up either. The state of undress did not apply to his face, which was covered by a plain white mask, the stranger getting his dressing priorities correct. Florence laughed upon sight of him, which prompted him to button up his fly, which was not the source of her mirth.

“We understand you want to keep your identity secret,” Hilaire said. “We’re willing to take her with us.”

“She’s safe with us. We have her in a secure location...”

“In yonder bedroom, Masked Marvel. Don’t lie to us,” Florence said amusedly with a little menace.

“Wrong house for whoever that is. I go by the Love Phantom, Florence,” he replied defiantly.

Florence tittered and said to Hilaire, “Come on, how are you not laughing at that?”

“He can call himself whatever he wants in his apartment,” Hilaire