Oh, Murderer Mine | Page 6

"He's twenty-six."
"Ugh!" said Melissa.
"Melissa," Beulah Porter Cowys said, "did you ever try stopping to
think before you started talking?"
"What?"
"It just so happens that I admit to being forty-nine, myself. What's so
repulsive about that?"
"Oh!" said Melissa. "Well--well--well, you don't keep a gigolo."

"That's because I can't afford one."
"Oh now, Beulah," said Melissa. "You're just saying that. What I meant
was that it's sort of ugly to think about old people having--having--well,
having ideas."
"There are some aged male movie comedians who don't seem to agree
with you."
"Oh, them," said Melissa. "They're just sexual neurotics. It's a
transference of the youth-longing. Shirley Parker explained it all to me.
It's the same sort of urge that makes nasty old men peep into
grade-school girls' playgrounds."
"That Shirley Parker," said Beulah Porter Cowys. "She can always give
me the creeps in five seconds flat. She makes life sound like an
unsupervised pigsty. She and her Freudian theories of motive analysis
are enough to turn anyone's stomach. But what I want to know right
now is, why is this alleged detective hanging around here?"
"Beulah," said Melissa, "that's simply priceless."
"Remember what I said about slander," Doan warned.
"Pooh! Beulah, this old hag--Heloise, I mean--hired him to keep
women away from her pretty husband. I mean, actually. Isn't that a
scream?"
"Oh, I don't know," said Beulah Porter Cowys. "Knowing what I know
about the morals of the younger generation--and do I know!--I think it's
a good idea."
"Oh, Beulah! You're just pretending--"
Something dropped and made a tinny battering clatter inside the second
chem lab.
"It's that damned janitor eavesdropping again!" Beulah Porter Cowys
snapped angrily. "Morales! Come here!"

A man eased himself out of the lab and looked at them in an elaborately
surprised way. He was short and solid and lackadaisically
stoop-shouldered, and he made each move as though it were the last
allowed him and he intended to draw the process out as far as possible.
He wore a battered black hat and a shirt with strategic holes in it and
overalls that bagged improbably in the rear. He was carrying three
galvanized pails in one hand and a floor brush over his shoulder.
"Hallo, peoples," he said in a liquidly lazy way. "You want something
of Maximilian Morales, no?"
"No," Beulah Porter Cowys agreed. "Go away somewhere."
"Wait a minute," Melissa intervened. "Morales, can't you do something
about the smell in Number 5?"
"I?" said Morales. "No."
"Yes, you can. You can calcimine those partitions or something--at
least, that'll give the place a new kind of an odor."
"Calcimine?" said Morales. "I? I have eight children, senorita."
"What has that got to do with it?"
"Senorita, it is very hard to have eight children. It makes a man tired. I,
Maximilian Morales, am tired."
"Well, stop having children then."
"Senorita, you are unreasonable."
"Eight children are enough."
"No," said Morales. "You will pardon me, senorita, but eight children
are not enough."
"Why not?"

"Because none of them are any good. That is why it is necessary for me
to arrange to have a ninth. Perhaps it will be smart enough to provide a
comfortable old age for its honored father and jobs for its stupid
brothers and sisters. One can only hope and keep trying."
"For how long?" Beulah Porter Cowys inquired.
Morales shrugged wearily. "That, of course, becomes a question one
often considers at our age."
"Just be careful, now, Morales," Beulah Porter Cowys warned.
"I am always careful, senorita. It becomes an established mannerism in
one of my breeding. You have, no doubt, heard of my great-great-great
grandmother?"
"Too many times."
Morales nodded politely at Doan. "My great-great-great grandmother
was regarded with a certain amount of favor by the great Maximilian,
Emperor of all Mexico."
"Congratulations," Doan said.
"Thank you, senor. Is that your dog lying on the floor which is my care
and responsibility?"
"Yes."
"Has the dog been trained, senor, to avoid--ah--accidents of an intimate
nature?"
"He's very well educated," Doan said.
"You relieve my mind, senor. It is easy to see that with a dog of such
great stature, an accident might be overwhelming."
"He never slips."

"He is to be congratulated. Now, if you will excuse me, I will resume
my duties."
"Here," said Melissa. "Wait a minute. Aren't you going to do anything
about fixing up Number 5?"
"Naturally not," said Morales, disappearing into the lab.
"Why all this sudden concern about Number 5?" Beulah Porter Cowys
asked.
"Handsome Lover Boy has appropriated my office."
"Well, didn't you remonstrate with him?"
"Certainly. He just sat and sneered."
"Did you kick to Sley-Mynick?"
Melissa shrugged. "Yes, but you know how he is. Handsome Lover
Boy evidently sneered at him, too, and that threw him into an outside
loop."
"Is Sley-Mynick