CAPTAIN MILLER WENT back to work. I stayed behind. The waiter asked if I wanted anything else. I ordered another napkin.
“Was that to use here or shall I wrap it to go?” he said, talking himself out of a tip. But he probably thought it was worth it.
I needed the napkin to doodle on while I thought about the woman in wool gloves that didn't go with her café au lait dress. She was the hot favorite as the person who picked up the bomb. Discovering her existence was a major piece of luck.
But there was no time for celebration. Delay might result in just the explosion and death Miller was so confident of. I felt the pressure; I needed to find Wool Glove Woman.
Of course the artist's drawing was the next big step, but I would need to show it to someone. Here the Animal brigade was clearly my best bet. If Wool Glove Woman knew to follow the Frog, the Frog might well know who Wool Glove Woman was.
The problem was that I did not yet have a way to get in touch with the Animals.
So I packed my napkin and went home. Maybe the Scummies had acceded to my requirement. Maybe I was still on a roll.
I had a visitor when I returned to my office, all right. But it did not hop, growl or beat its chest.
Quentin Quayle looked awful. Sleeplessness did not agree with him. Nor, perhaps, did sitting on my office stairs through May showers.
He stood up as I opened the door.
I unlocked the office and went in.
He didn't need an embossed invitation.
“I'm so cold,” he said. “Where have you been?”
“Working, Poet. I told you I'm busy.”
I went to my desk. There had been seven calls but I didn't want to play the messages in public. I found an earplug and said, “Excuse me a minute,” while he sorted himself out on the chair.
Five of the calls were from him. But another was from Frank, who said that he'd pulled a few strings and that the first of my TV ads would be broadcast on Cab-Co tonight. The seventh call was without a message.
By the time I began the rewinding procedure, Quentin Quayle was comfortable enough to be irritated.
“I am paying you,” he said.
When I didn't answer—it wasn't a question, was it?—he said, “Well?”
“You want your money back?”
“Have you achieved anything with this work you've been out doing all day?”
“Quite a lot,” I said, “but I haven't looked for Charlotte Vivien's gentleman friend yet.”
“Why not?”
“For one thing, your instruction was to follow her late afternoons and at night.”
For another I had forgotten about her, but good Go-for-It Detectives don't share that kind of tiny truth with clients.
He said morosely, “She's been out all day and I don't know where.”
“Are you saying you want her followed day and night?”
“No, no.”
“Well, what have you been calling me about?”
“I thought it might help if you had a photograph of Charlotte.”
“I have met the woman. Even worked for her. Bowed though my head was in her august presence, I would recognize her again.”
“You don't have to be snotty,” he said. “You don't have to kick a man just because he is down and in love.”
He was right, of course. You don't have to. It can feel good, though.
But I said, “Sorry. If you have a photograph of her, I would be pleased to have it.”
A hangdog looked up and said, “Would you?”
“Pathos makes me borborygmic, Poet. Just give me the picture.”
He passed an envelope across the desk. It had a thin pink ribbon around it.
I found scissors. Inside was a pack of some twenty photographs.
I leafed through them. Charlotte Vivien in almost every conceivable daytime-around-the-house pose. Any one of ten would do for identification purposes.
But I became aware that this was an attractive woman.
I hadn't noticed during the tense days leading up to the party. Then she had just seemed obsessed with what a hysterically funny idea the party was.
In these pictures, however, her face was lively and expressive. She seemed comfortable with the photographic scrutiny and her eyes, especially, came alive as I thumbed through the shots. Quentin's preoccupation might not be with her bank balance after all.
I pulled one of the facial full frontals and said, “Thanks.”
“You're welcome.”
“Now, how about a few more details? She's about forty right?”
“Forty-seven.”
I looked at the picture again. “You said she has children.”
“Two. Both at college. Usually.”
“And she has a lot of interests and activities?”
“She's very active,” he said.
“When you go home, I want you to write out a list of the organizations she belongs to with details of where their meetings are held and who might be there. O.K.?”
“I can do that,” he said.
“And you don't know where she is now?”
“No.”
“But she's coming back later this afternoon?”
“There are a dozen people from the Butler dance and drama department coming over for cocktails.”
“So if someone is ready to follow her after that . . .”
“Great,” Quayle said.
Then he started to cry.
That passed my chicken limit. “On your way, Poet. Go home and write the list. Make it rhyme.”
He rose and began to gather his outdoor clothing. But he moved slowly and sniffed a lot.
I said, “I don't buy this feeble stuff, Poet. I think it's a Scarlet Pimpernel act while all the time you're the brains behind the Scum Front. Don't think I haven't noticed they only showed up after you hit town.”
For a moment, his eyes lit up. “You've read Baroness Emmuska Orczy?”
“Just the Classic Comic.”
That hit harder than any of the cracks I'd aimed directly at him.
“What am I doing here?” he said. “In this . . . this . . . desert.”
And despite myself, I felt the loneliness and I was affected.
He looked at me with half a smile. “I wasn't always the Quentin Quayle you see before you.”
“You weren't?”
“I am my own creation. I was born a `George.' I became `Quentin.' The alliteration seemed a good career move.”
“Oh.”
“I used to be in love with my life. Now I am in Indiana with my love.”
He said the second “love” as if he wasn't having a real good time.
I said, “But you were always a Quayle?”
“Oh yes.”
I went to the door. “If you want something to make you feel better, stop at the luncheonette downstairs. Ask for Mom and say I sent you. Order some of her chili. It's good for love.”
When he left I called Graham Parkis again. I wanted him to supply someone to cover Charlotte Vivien for a few days.
“Well, well,” Parkis said. “Things must be on the move down your end of the market.”
“I have a photograph of the target and I know where she'll be from late this afternoon. Can your operative come downtown with your artist? That should give him or her plenty of time to get up to the house before the target goes out.”
“You don't care whether it's a man or a woman?”
“Not in the slightest.”
“In that case what about if the artist is the operative? We know she's available.”
“She's used to surveillance?”
“Oh yes.”
“Can she do the picture and still get to the north side before seven?”
“If you and your witness are punctual, there should be no problem at all.”
“Sold,” I said.
“I'll give her a call now. She'll be pleased to have the work. She's got a mother who's not well. It's run up some bills.”
I hung up and chewed an antacid. I get awful indigestion when I'm force-fed on sob stories.