6 - The Eye of the Virgin: Ike Schwartz Mystery 6 by Frederick Ramsay Page A

and…” Ike wasn’t at all sure how to proceed.
Hook up
seemed a little too modern, and he didn’t like its implications.
Meet
was a given.
    “You want to know what I’m doing here in this restaurant on a Monday night instead of back home in Richmond watching TV?”
    “I was up to a meeting in the governor’s office a while back,” Abe interrupted, “and there was this dinner afterwards. I told you all about that meeting, but you probably forgot. Anyway, Dolly was there and we got to reminiscing and such and one thing led to another…”
    Ike noticed Dolly blushed at
one thing led to another.
Oh, my God.
    “You know, my Murray died about the same time as your mother, Ike. Your father invited me down for the weekend. You know, in all the years I knew you all, I never got to the valley to visit. So, now here I am.”
    Dolly sat straight and very ladylike, hands folded in her lap, ankles crossed. She had been taught that as a child and had been sitting on chairs, benches, sofas, and settees like that for over sixty years. All she needed was a hat with a little veil and white gloves, and it could be 1959. Ike struggled to find words to fill the silence that descended around the table like a heavy fog. Abe was oblivious to it and sat with adoring, puppy eyes fixed on Dolly.
    As Ike steeled himself to raise the topic of the weather, always a safe conversational filler and diversion, a gambit to kill time, Ruth arrived. The two men stood. Ruth was introduced to Dolly and the three sat.
    “Ike never told me he had an aunt.”
    “She’s not—”
    “I’m not—” They both began and stopped.
    “Ike, you first. We’ll check your version with Aunt Dolly after.”
    “Dolly, Mrs. Frankenfeld, is…was my mother’s friend…best friend…for years when we stayed in Richmond. She is an honorary aunt, you could say.”
    Dolly nodded her head. “It’s so nice to meet you, Miz Harris; oops, Doctor Harris. I understand there might be a little announcement coming from you and Ike pretty soon.”
    Ruth screwed up her face in a puzzled frown, the Popeye look. “Announcement? I’m not sure what that would be.”
    “Oh, I understood you and Ike were very close. That sort of announcement.”
    “Oh that, yes, ah…” Ruth shifted her frown from puzzlement to concentration. “Okay, so, I am not pregnant. Is that what you had in mind?”
    “Oh, no, I mean of course you aren’t, why would you be? I mean…mercy.”
    Ike tapped Ruth’s ankle under the table with his shoe and muttered “Behave!” out of the corner of his mouth.
    Ruth smiled. Pure innocence. Ike groaned. He recognized the look. He’d seen it hundreds of times. Ruth was on a roll.
    “And you, Dolly, do you and Abe have an announcement to share, too?” Ike kicked her harder. “Ow!”
    “An announcement, why. . .” Dolly’s blush started at the neckline of her dress and advanced like the red tide up to and past her hair line. “No, I don’t think so. Do we, Abe?” Abe had a coughing fit.
    “No, sir. I mean…no. So, how have you been, Ruth? Busy up at the college, I reckon.” Abe looked at his son, who fixed on Ruth a look that qualified as one that could kill or at least maim.
    “Wine,” Ike said. “Frank has a very nice wine selection, residual from his days as the proprietor of a French restaurant. Red or white? A nice
pinot noir
perhaps.”
    “Champagne,” Ruth said. She turned to face the three others. “I’m sorry, I have not been behaving. Please forgive me. It’s Ike’s fault.” Ike’s eyebrows shot up and he started to protest but Ruth sailed on. “It’s just that I enjoy pushing his buttons. And he, mine, as a matter of fact. But, he’s been so patient with me and I’ve been so vague these past months, he was beginning to think it was hopeless, you see?”
    They didn’t.
    “Okay, then, here we go. And Ike, please don’t kick my shins anymore. I bruise easily. Of course you knew that already, because when…but that’s