"That's no way to talk about your husband," he reproved her patiently.
"I can talk about him any way I like — that phony, conceited, two-timing, chiseling, short-changing, freeboozing—"
"Hush, darling. You are speaking about God."
" 'God' Quillen! You should see the pit crew smirking when they call him that, when he isn't around!. But I don't have to waste a good bullet on him. A good subpoena would hurt him just as much. Only I'd never divorce him either, for somebody else to have. The one I'd like you to kill is the Continental indoor sports model with the slippery clutch, who's warming him up for another qualifying lap. Her name is Teresa Montesino, if you insist on a label on every tombstone."
Simon allowed his somewhat obstructed gaze to transfer itself to the exotic pulse-perturber on whom Godfrey Quillen was exerting his highest-octane charm. This was not an unbearably painful shift. The brunette had all the more obvious attractions that Mrs. Quillen superficially lacked. She had the intense dark eyes and sensual lips that automatically inspire exploratory ideas, and the corporeal structure which it is always fun to explore. A hopeless cynic might have prognosticated that at some middle-aged future she could be just plain fat, but this was an unhappy conclusion that a less cautious soul did not have to envisage prematurely. At a similar age to Cynthia's, still safely under thirty, she offered the overwhelming sort of competition that any wife might reasonably have qualms about.
"You can't shoot him for having good eyesight," said the Saint soothingly.
"I told you, I'd rather keep him. I've been doing it for so long that I guess I've got to like the habit. How do you think he got to be a big racing driver?"
"Not by being good at it?"
"Oh, he's fairly good — for an amateur jockey who hardly knows how to change a spark plug. But General Motors doesn't build racing cars and sponsor teams like the European manufacturers. And if they did, they'd hire professionals who came up the hard way — not glamor boys with a rich wife."
"Are you a rich wife?"
"Loaded." She looked into her glass, and made a grimace. "In more ways than one. But he was what I wanted, and I could afford it, so I let him have fun spending my money. And brother, are those expensive toys! You have no idea what it costs to keep replacing those buggies, besides the care and feeding while they last. Nothing but the best of everything. Oil that Cleopatra should have a facial with, and a new set of tires every—"
"I know something about it. But most of us throw good money away on one silly plaything or another."
"And Godfrey is my bauble-boy. Thanks. I like your subtle touch, Saint. So you'll understand that if I feel like protecting my investment from that high-compression stepmother of Romulus and Remus—"
"Foster mother," Simon corrected her gently. "That is, if you're talking about the famous she-wolf. Well, it seems to me that all you'd have to do is yank the checkbook out from under him."
Cynthia Quillen exchanged her empty glass for a full one from the well-stocked tray of a hospitably roving waiter, with the dexterity of a veteran at such functions.
"You're not being very bright," she said peevishly. "If I did that, he'd sulk for weeks, and so what would that give me? You don't know what a brilliant sulker he is. Why make complications, when the obvious and effective answer is staring you in the face? Just exterminate the menace with the unsealed-beam headlights. I'd pay quite a lot for it."
The Saint permitted himself one of his sometimes well-concealed sighs. This was a hell of a way to start a visit to Nassau, where he had gone only to take in that sub-tropical island's annual Speed Week — perhaps pleasantly leavened by the social festivities that considerately coincided therewith. He had enough friends in the Bahamas to be assured of all the incidental entertainment he wanted; and although the days when he himself had burned up a few tires under a certain cream-and-red Hirondel were now approaching the realms of reminiscence if not legend, he could still feel some of the old vibrations in the blood stream awakened by the smell of Castrol and the roar of beautifully tuned engines and the sight of sleek wheeled monsters crowding each other through dizzying chicanes. But invitations to murder were even farther than those old road-racing days from anything he expected to be actively involved in on that trip.
"You're kidding, of course — I hope," he said, and had an uncomfortable presentiment of her answer before he heard it.
"Try me with a blank check and a good ball-point pen."
He shook his head.
"You can't take it with you, but don't throw it away. If Teresa is what you think, you could buy her off for much less than you could hire me."
Mrs. Quillen scowled with increasing alcoholic frustration at the fresh drink which she had already half finished.
"You won't take me seriously," she complained. "If I have to do it myself, and I swing for it, I hope you'll be sorry. You could 've got me out of that predicament. If you even only made love to her yourself, and took her away from him, which I'm sure you could do easily—"
"Now you're making sense," said the Saint, grasping the straw gratefully. "Why don't you introduce me?"
Before she could say anything else, he had taken her enthusiastically by the arm and was steering her through the throng with a firmness that was within an ounce of the closest that good manners could come to violence.
"Well," Cynthia said, almost breathlessly. "If it isn't my ever-loving husband. And the lovable Miss Montesino. Meet my new friend, Mr. Templar."
"I was hoping I'd meet you, Mr. Templar," Godfrey Quillen said, with an almost professionally fervent handshake and a wide smile of white teeth. "Sometimes I've almost wondered if you were real — my very favorite character!"
"Mine, too," said Teresa Montesino, with a softer and even warmer touch.
"That's wonderful, darling," Cynthia said, looking directly at her. "Because you just won him. Godfrey and I are late already for a dull old dinner party of respectably married couples."
Her spouse consulted his wrist watch with rather elaborate nonchalance.
"Why, so we are, sweetheart. How terribly tedious. Will you excuse us, Teresa? And Mr. Templar—" He insisted on another, even heartier handshake. "Come and see us messing about in the pits tomorrow. You might give us some new ideas. I'd like to talk to you. "
His wife practically dragged him away, amiably protesting. She could do this convincingly, for they were almost the same height, though he had a well-knit breadth that made you think of him as a bigger man when you remembered him alone.
"Well, it was nice knowing him," Simon remarked, following the rest of the exit with his eyes. "Now the next time I meet some other road-racing buffs, I'll really be able to impress them with reminiscences of my great pal Godfrey Quillen."
"Are you so unhappy to be stuck with me?" asked Teresa.
She had enough Mediterranean accent to give her voice a fascinatingly different intonation, but not enough to attract too much attention or to become quickly tiresome.
"By no means," said the Saint, and gave her another thorough inspection at this more convenient range. "I mean, am I stuck? If so, I have a sensational idea. Let's throw a dinner party of our own — for disreputably unmarried couples. And just to be sure we don't insult anybody, let's not invite anyone else."
"I must try not to wonder if you are insulting me, Simon. And if only I did not already have a date—"
"I'm sorry. I should have known that anyone as fabulous as you—"
"I should not have the embarrassment of breaking it," she concluded serenely, as if he had not interrupted. "Will you excuse me for a minute, to telephone?"
That was the beginning of an evening which he would remember for a long time. Not that he was likely to forget the important details of any adventure, but an evening with Teresa Montesino was quite an experience in its own right.