I told him it sounded very attractive and I’d let him know tomorrow. Since Jarrell had said to let him have fifty or a hundred I could have dished it out then and there, but if I did he probably wouldn’t be around tomorrow, and there was an off chance that I would want him for something. He took it like a gentleman, no shoving.
When, that morning on the terrace, I had proposed dinner and dance to Lois, I had mentioned the Flamingo Club, but the experience at Rusterman’s with Trella had shown me it wouldn’t be advisable. So I asked her if she would mind making it Colonna’s in the Village, where there was a good band and no one knew me, at least not by name, and we weren’t apt to run into any of my friends. For a second she did mind, but then decided it would be fun to try one she had never been to.
Jarrell had said she was particular about her dancing partners, and she had a right to be. The rhythm was clear through her, not just from her hips down, and she was right with me in everything we tried. To give her as good as she gave I had to put the mind away entirely and let the body take over, and the result was that when midnight came, and time for champagne, I hadn’t made a single stab at the project I was supposed to be working on. As the waiter was pouring I was thinking. What the hell, a detective has to get the subject feeling intimate before he can expect her to discuss intimate matters, and three more numbers ought to do it. Actually I never did get it started. It just happened that when we returned to the table again and finished the champagne, she lifted her glass with the last thimbleful, said, “To life and death,” and tossed it down. She put the glass on the table and added, “If death ever slept.”
“I’m with you,” I said, putting my empty glass next to hers, “or I guess I am. What does it mean?”
“I don’t know. I ought to, since I wrote it myself. It’s from that poem I wrote. The last five lines go:
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I like the sound of it, but I’m still not sure what it means.”
“Neither am I. That’s why I’m sure it’s a poem. Susan understands it, or says she does. She says there’s one thing wrong with it, that instead of ‘a bitter tear’ it ought to be ‘a welcome tear.’ I don’t like it. Do you?”
“I like ‘bitter’ better. Is Susan strong on poems?”
“I don’t really know. I don’t understand her any better than I understand that poem. I think she’s strong on Susan, but of course she’s my sister-in-law and her bedroom is bigger than mine, and I’m fond of my brother when I’m not fighting with him, so I probably hate her. I’ll find out when I get analyzed.”
I nodded. “That’ll do it. I noticed last evening the males all gathered around except your father. Apparently he didn’t even see her.”
“He saw her all right. If he doesn’t see a woman it’s because she’s not there. Do you know what a satyr is?”
“More or less.”
“Look it up in the dictionary. I did once. I don’t believe my father is a satyr because half the time his mind is on something else — making more money. He’s just a tomcat. What’s that they’re starting? ‘Mocajuba?’”
It was. I got up and circled the table to pull her chair back.
To be fair to Wednesday, it’s true that it was more productive than Tuesday, but that’s not saying I got any further along. It added one more to my circle of acquaintances. That was in the morning, just before noon. Having turned in around two and stayed in bed for my preferred minimum of eight hours, as I went downstairs I was thinking that breakfast would probably be a problem, but headed for the dining room anyway just to see, and in half a minute there was Steck with orange juice. I said that and coffee would hold me until lunch, but no, sir. In ten minutes he brought toast and bacon and three poached eggs and two kinds of jam and a pot of coffee. That attended to, in company with the morning Times, I went to the library and spent half an hour not chatting with Nora Kent. She was there, and I was willing to converse, but she either had things to do or made things to do, so after a while I gave up and departed. She did say that Jarrell’s plane would be due at La Guardia at 3:05 p.m.
Strolling along the corridor toward the front and seeing that my watch said 11:56, I thought I might as well stop in at the studio for the twelve o’clock news. The door was closed, and I opened it and entered, but two steps in I stopped. It was inhabited. Susan was in a chair, and standing facing her was a stranger, a man in a dark gray suit with a jaw that looked determined in profile. Evidently he had been too occupied to hear the door opening, for he didn’t wheel to me until I had taken the two steps.
“Sorry,” I said, “I’m just cruising,” and was going, but Susan spoke.
“Don’t go, Mr. Green. This is Jim Eber. Jim, this is Alan Green. You know he — I mentioned him.”
My predecessor was still occupied, but not too much to lift a hand. I took it, and found that his muscles weren’t interested. He spoke, not as if he wanted to. “I dropped in to see Mr. Jarrell, but he’s away. Nothing important, just a little matter. How do you like the job?”
“I’d like it fine if it were all like the first two days. When Mr. Jarrell gets back, I don’t know. I can try. Maybe you could give me some pointers.”
“Pointers?”
You might have thought it was a word I had just made up. Obviously his mind wasn’t on his vocabulary or on me; it was working on something, and not on getting his job back or I would have been a factor.
“Some other time,” I said. “Sorry I interrupted.”
“I was just going,” he said, and, with his jaw set, marched past me and on out.
“Oh dear,” Susan said.
I looked down at her. “I don’t suppose there’s anything I can help with?”
“No, thank you.” She shook her head and her little oval face came up. Then she left the chair. “Do you mind? But of course you don’t — only I don’t want to be rude. I want to think something over.”
I said something polite and she went. Eber had closed the door behind him and I opened it for her. She made for the rear and turned a corner, and in a moment I heard the elevator. With that settled, that she hadn’t set out after Eber, I turned on the radio and got the tail end of the newscast.
That was the new acquaintance. The only other contribution that Wednesday made worth mentioning came six hours later, and though, as I said, it got me no further along, it did add a new element to the situation. Before reporting it I should also mention my brief exchange with Wyman. I was in the lounge with a magazine when he appeared, stepped out to the terrace, came back in, and approached.
“You’re not overworked, are you?” he asked.
There are several possible ways of asking that, running from the sneer to the brotherly smile. His was about in the middle. I might have replied, “Neither are you,” but didn’t. He was too skinny, and too handicapped by his tight little ears and thin straight nose, to make a good target, and besides, he thought he was trying. He had produced two shows on Broadway, and while one had folded after three days, the other had run nearly a month. Also his father had told me that in spite of the venomous influence of the snake he was still trying to teach him the technique of making money grow.