Rainbow's End by Martha Grimes Page A

song.” He turned again to the evening sky, the river.
    â€œAnd then she went homeward with one star awake,
    As the swan in the evening drifts over the lake.”
    From a state of equanimity, Jury was plunged without warning into a terrible sadness. He tried to counteract it by saying, “I’ll talk to Lady Cray again. And A Division.”
    â€œI knew you’d see reason, Jury.”

SEVEN
    Funnels of yellow dust blew out from the rear wheels of the Bentley as Melrose Plant and Marshall Trueblood made their bumpy way across the wasteland that lay between the Northampton Road and the Blue Parrot pub.
    â€œI’ve wondered who in hell would come here but us. It’s a good mile off the main road and nothing but dry fields. Is that wheat? It looks burnt.”
    â€œThat’s the point,” said Melrose. “Sly does everything he can to create the illusion you’re trekking across hot sands and thinking, ‘God, I’m thirsty,’ when you really aren’t. Sells more beer that way.”
    The Blue Parrot was an undistinguished-looking square building out in the middle of nowhere that no one would even find had Trevor Sly not had the foresight to put a large and gaudy sign out on the Northampton Road. The pub was painted bright blue, in honor of its name, and over it hung another gaudy sign, a smaller version of the one by the road, this one depicting a veiled lady with bejeweled forehead and a couple of rough turbanned types. They must all have just de-cameled, for their mounts were tethered to a post. One could just make out, through the painted open door, a belly dancer doing her stuff in the sign’s den of iniquity.
    Since Melrose had last been here, a whole new little desert scene had been enacted to embellish the Moroccan image. There had never been grass around the Blue Parrot, but there had been a brownish stubble enclosing a dry stone fountain. The fountain was, of course, still dry, but was now surrounded by sand, as was the pub itself. And on an iron post-perch above one window swung an anomalous blue-green painted bird with a yellow beak that could have been anything from a blue hawk to a blue vulture. It swung gently in a freshening breeze.
    â€œRain? Do I smell rain?” asked Marshall, with a dry, parched little cough.
    â€œNot here, you don’t.”
    The orangish yellow light splashed around outside by the setting sun stopped short at the door. Directly inside, it was dark as pitch.
    â€œI can’t see! I’m blind!” yelled Trueblood, clutching at Melrose’s sleeve.
    â€œOh, shut up.” Melrose pushed aside the beaded curtain (also new) that had been hung here to make a little alcove of the entrance. On the other side of this curtain, gray light filtered through slat-shuttered windows. Ceiling fans whirred softly; the fronds of potted palms drooped; and tendrils of smoke appeared to be swirling around the ceiling, forming, dissipating, re-forming.
    â€œIs something burning?” Trueblood sniffed the air.
    â€œBe careful of the camel.”
    Trueblood, in his so-called blindness, had nearly toppled the large camel cutout that was used to display the menu for the day. And the menu looked similar to the ones Melrose had seen when he was here with Jury two years ago. How could Trevor Sly keep serving the same food month after month, year after year, given the food was (supposedly) some sort of Middle Eastern stuff, Lebanese, perhaps. Melrose could see how a Happy Eater might serve up the same egg, beans, and chips for a zillion years, but how long could you keep cooking up Kibbi Bi-Saniyyi? And then Melrose remembered that all of the main dishes bore a surprising resemblance to one another and also to minced beef.
    â€œWhat the hell’s Kifta Mishwi?” Trueblood was leaning over, squinting at the blackboard menu.
    â€œSame as Kibbi Bi-Saniyyi.”
    â€œThat’s a help.”
    Trueblood continued to study the hump