The fish, of a kind unfamiliar to Margaret, had a delicate flavor of garlic and thyme. "Mr. Richards, where did you learn to cook like this?"
"Here and there," said Pongo. "Mostly there," He was up again, bringing an enormous steak from the grill.
"He's a sea cook," said Irma. "Call him Pongo, or he'll think you're mad at him."
"Wait till you see what he can do when he makes an effort," said Anderson. "Who'd like some of this steak?"
No one replied; Anderson put the steak on his plate and proceeded to cut it up and eat it. Margaret tried not to watch him, but she could not help being fascinated by the unhurried way he made the food disappear. He forked up a bleeding chunk, his strong jaws chewed it, and he was ready for another. When the steak was gone, he took a helping of fish and ate that.
"Sit still, Pongo, I'll bring the dessert," said Irma. She took their plates, brought a cool green mousse, and served coffee. Anderson's mousse was the same size as the others; he ate it in two bites and said," Let's see that letter, Maggie."
She brought it to him and handed him a pencil from the counter; it looked like a dance-card pencil in his fingers. "This is all right," he said, "this is wrong, and this one." He crossed out two names and corrected them.
A bell sounded; Irma swiveled her chair to the intercom panel, glanced at the screen. "Expecting anybody?" she said to the room. No one replied.
"Yes, can I help you?" she said to the microphone. In the screen, Margaret could see a man in the open window of a car. A voice said, "Ma'am, I'm J. A. Coburn, of Smith and Barrows, here to see Mr. Anderson."
"Mr. Anderson doesn't see anybody without an appointment."
"Well, ma'am, I did write asking for an appointment, but unfortunately I didn't get an answer, so I just figured -- "
"I'm sorry your letter wasn't answered. If you'll just go home and be patient, we'll take care of that as soon as we can." She turned off the microphone.
"Was there anything from him in that stack?" she asked Margaret.
"No."
"This whole county is full of people that would just love to sell Gene something. We try to stay out of sight, but you can't hide a place like this. People will talk. There's the builder and all the contractors, the cleaning women, the lawyers -- "
"Irma, try to keep that damn gate closed, too, will you?" Anderson's hand was clenched around his napkin. "I know it's hard, when people are going in and out, but I hate to think somebody could just walk in here."
"Yes, sir," said Irma, in a tone nicely balanced between respect and irony.
Anderson got up. "See you all later." He walked out.
Pongo asked, "More coffee?"
Margaret took the misspelled letter back to her office and retyped it. When she was finished, she put the new copy in the folder with the other letters and carried it back to the kitchen. Irma was at the table as usual; Pongo was banging pots in the sink.
"Irma, I forgot to ask you where to put these letters when I'm done -- back in the office?"
"Oh. I never told you, did I. Come on, I might as well give you the fifty-cent tour while I'm at it. Pongo, you going to be here for a while?"
"Sure, go ahead."
In the hallway, Irma gestured toward the stairway with its wrought-iron railing that led up to the back of the house. "Here's where you go upstairs, if you don't like ramps. It brings you out on the balcony up there, but we'll go the other way." They walked through the living room to the corridor and passed Margaret's office. Irma opened the next door. "Library."
It was a big room paneled in walnut, with a fireplace, a long table in the center with a few stacks of books on it, and empty shelves all around. "Books haven't come yet," Irma said. "That'll be a job." She closed the door. "The rest of these rooms down here are empty."
Next came a ramp, like the one in the living room but much narrower. As they started up, Margaret was thinking with respect of the architect who had designed this house. He had had an impossible problem and had solved it beautifully: the sunken areas in the kitchen and living room that made it possible for Anderson to talk face to face with normal people; the ramps, because he couldn't use an ordinary staircase. To Anderson, she thought, this must be like living in a house built partly for dolls. "Munchkins," she said aloud.
"What?"
"I was just thinking. The Munchkins -- you know, the little people in 'The Wizard of Oz.'"
"Oh."
The door at the end of the balcony opened onto a study. All the furniture here was scaled to Anderson's dimensions, the desk, drawing table, couch, chairs, coffee table. The room was almost as big as the kitchen, but it looked much smaller because of the ramp that rose around two sides.
"This part is all Gene's," said Irma. "This is his study, or den, or whatever you want to call it, and in there is his sitting room." Through the open doorway Margaret could see a huge cushioned Morris chair with a shelf on either side, on which books and papers were stacked, and a sort of tilted lapboard on a swivel which held an open dictionary. "What he likes is for you to come when he's not here, put the letters on the desk for him to sign, pick up anything in his out basket. When he's here, he hates to be disturbed, so always make sure before you go up. You can go in the sitting room, too, if you have a reason. Up there is his bedroom, and that's out of bounds. He even cleans it himself."
"That sounds awfully lonely," Margaret said after a moment.
"Maybe so." Irma led her back to the balcony and through a doorway into a long passage that ran the width of the house. "Most of these rooms are empty," she said. "Here's mine. Come in and sit down awhile -- Pongo will mind the store."
They were in a cheerful living room with floral covers on the furniture, flowers in a vase, a huge TV screen. In one corner, over a little desk, was a duplicate of the intercom system in the kitchen. "Excuse me a minute," Irma said. She went to the intercom, pushed a putton. "Pongo ?"
"Yeah."
"We're in my room. If you want to go somewhere before we get back, push the slave button."
"Okay."
Irma sat down opposite Margaret and put her feet up on a hassock. "Now let's talk," she said. "Anything you're wondering about -- any questions?"
"I don't understand why he doesn't hire more people. You work so hard, and Pongo -- does he do all the cooking?"
"And the marketing, and goes to the post office every day, and so on. I know what you're saying. Gene could have a staff of servants in here, security guards and all that, but he can't bear having anybody around that he doesn't know. He's spooky about intruders -- you saw that. There isn't even a fire escape to his apartment up there. Building code says you have to have one, so he had it built, waited till after inspection, then tore it down and hauled it away."
"Doesn't he have any family, or friends, I mean besides you and Pongo?"
"He knows a few people here. He was out of the country for twenty years; when he got back he put a little ad in 'Amusement Business,' but I was the only one that answered it. All the people he used to know in the carnival are dead and gone, or else scattered who knows where."
"You were in the carnival?"
"Carnival, and then in the circus. My husband and I had a juggling act -- the Amazing Raimondis. Ray left me a little money when he died. I didn't have anything else to do, so I came down here to work for Gene."
"Ray was your husband?"
"My second. He died on Christmas Day, nineteen seventy-six. Heart attack."
"I'm sorry."
"That's all right. He was a real bastard. Speaking of Christmas," Irma said, "we have a rule here that you don't give anybody anything made by a machine. If you can make your own presents, Gene would like that, or if you can't, find something that was hand made by some one person."
"I see."