He didn't like being reminded of that "The blond." He said it coolly, like a natural blond should.
"Good." Her lightly raspy voice lowered to conspirator-level. "I liked you best."
"I'm sorry, Miss Carlson, but we've never met. I heard about you, of course--"
"Same here. And ... I glimpsed you both in the casino. Temple really shouldn't reduce the man pool by two, given the male-female ratio among the aging population."
"Temple shouldn't do a lot of things she does, but I do think she should talk to me, if she's there, and if you don't mind."
"I do, but I am a good, if heartbroken, hostess. Nice talking to you, Matt."
He rolled his eyes. Now what was Temple saying? About him, about Kinsella?
"Matt!"
Her voice was so vibrant, so nearby, despite the long-distance line that he forgot his list of annoyances. "Hi. Glad I caught you in."
"How goes everything?"
"The sofa came."
"Really?"
"It was pretty difficult, and expensive, to get up all these stairs. The movers said a baby grand would be easier."
"Stairs? Why not the elevator ... oh, too big. Too bad. Listen, my aunt's place is down in the Village, where they have a lot of upscale vintage stores and I think, I think your sofa is a Vladimir Kagan."
Suddenly it really was his sofa. "A Vladimir Kagan? No wonder it's red."
"Fun-ny. Kagan is German. I spotted his stuff when Kit and I window-shopped the pricey vintage places. Kagan is a fabulous custom designer who was avant-hot in the fifties; now his pieces are undergoing a huge revival. You need to tip up your--what did the brochure call it?--'extravagantly biomorphic' sofa and check the bottom for any signatures or labels."
"Temple. Three men could barely get this thing here upright. How am I going to tip it over solo, and look for labels?"
"I'll do the label part when I get back."
"Thanks."
"You sound kind of terse. Everything okay? If it's a Kagan it's worth four thousand dollars, easy, in New York or LA."
"Yeah, but it'd take five thousand dollars to get it there. Besides, I kind of like it here, I decided."
"You do? I'm so glad. I worried during the whole plane flight that I'd buffaloed you into something you'd hate. I get carried away sometimes."
"I noticed. I like it. The sofa, I mean. Not you getting carried away. But I like that too. I doubt I'd have the nerve not to like something you liked."
"Awww."
"How are things going there?"
"All right, but it's New York and it's noisy all night, sirens and garbage trucks from Hades, and crowded all day, and they have split elevator banks and don't tell you, but Louie is being a lamb. Isn't it a little early for you to be up?"
"I had last night off."
"And--"
"What do you mean, And--'?"
"Matt. I can hear the strain in your voice. I heard it from the first. It can't be just from hustling collectible sofas up three flights of stairs."
"You're scary sometimes."
"Thanks."
"Temple." He gathered himself to hurl headfirst into a topic that was a lot more volatile than a flaming red sofa, or a flaming redhead. "I found him."
Her words stalled for the first time. "Effinger?" she said finally.
"Effinger."
"How?"
"One of the little sketches you suggested. A ... woman contacted me and said he was hanging out at an off-Strip casino."
"Well, what happened?"
"A lot. But it's not suitable for long distance. I'll tell you when you get back. I'm working New Year's Eve, but maybe we can have New Year's Day dinner."
"You never take the rough nights off, do you?"
"I don't have a family, and the others do."
"Maybe you do too, and you just don't know it yet."
He found another dead silence growing. "I have the sofa now for quite a clan."
"Hey, you can't let just anybody sit on an extravagantly biomorphic collector's item like a Kagan couch."
"Just you, then. And me."
"That sounds pretty good."
"Did you have that in mind when you made me get it?"
"Maybe. But what happened to Effinger? Surely you can give me a hint."
"I found him at his motel, which you know well."
"Yes, Nostradamus. Which one?"
"Did I rhyme the last sentence? Must have been the boilermaker I didn't have while bribing half the bartenders in town."
"You, hitting the streets and the bottle like Sam Spade? Wish I'd been there. You were going to tell me where 'there' was."
"The Blue Mermaid Motel. No, you wouldn't really have wanted to be there."
"Ooh, sleazy. What did you do when you caught up with him?"
"I didn't kill him. I just collared him. Called Molina and handed him over later. She was peeved I hadn't forewarned her, but I didn't exactly know that was gonna be the night."
"So. You okay with it?"
"Better than okay. I didn't kill him."
"I didn't think you would."
"How come I wasn't so sure of that?"
"Because you're the Hamlet of the Circle Ritz. You're so busy debating the right thing to do, and if you'll do it, that you sometimes miss the obvious."
"So what was so obvious?"
"You're not like him, Matt. Never were, never will be. You'd never kill him."
"But I hate him."
"You're entitled, and besides, you make yourself so guilty about that, that killing him would ruin your fun."
"Temple, if you ever die, you'll go to heaven, or--if there's a form of sanctioned reincarnation--you're going to come back as a very long red sofa and bedevil the life out of somebody for forty more years."
"I hope so," she said. "You can sit on me anytime you like."
He didn't answer that one, especially with weird fragments of porno film dancing in his head along with the usual seasonal snowflakes and sugarplums. She went on without pause, anyway.
"What are you doing for Christmas? Working?"
"No. Not this year. I called the supervisor today. I'm going to take a few days off. Go up to Chicago."
"Sounds like a good idea." She spoke so cautiously that he could almost see the red light in her mind.
"Maybe, maybe not. I think you were right, though. There are more issues than Effinger."
"I am? I said that? When?"
"In one of your usual glancing moments of brilliant insight too dazzling for you to see yourself."
"You mock me, Hamlet."
"You need it."
"I don t like men with too many secrets."
"Oh, I think you know that mine are pretty pedestrian. But you are having a good time there, despite urban blight, and Louie's fine?"
"In his element! Speaking of ham. And--"
Now she hesitated. Saving the worst till last, Matt thought. What could have gone wrong?
"There's been a murder. At the advertising agency. But don't worry. Louie and Kit and I are on the case. Gotta go now; Kit and I are having brunch at the Russian Tea Room, and if you don't get there on time they send you to Siberia or something. Have a Merry Christmas despite yourself, Matt, please! I miss you."
And she hung up.
Sometimes he thought that Kinsella should have her. Would serve him right.
Chapter 24
Rudy the Red-nosed Pothead
Kit hung up from calling a string of names in her personal phone directory, a volume so fat and crammed with odd bits of paper that it was held together by a rubber band.
"I'd much rather have chatted on the phone half the morning with the darling Mister Devine in Las Vegas, than do this."
"He called; not me. Besides, our conversation didn't last that long. You still exhausted your list, didn't you?"