IN THE FIRST GAS STATION I came to I changed the leaky tire for the spare.
On the way home I did not exceed the speed limit by so much as a mile an hour.
I braked whenever I saw a yellow light.
I invited buses to pull out in front of me.
I stopped behind each stop sign, and then edged to the corner to look for cross-traffic.
When I got to Virginia Avenue I did not park across from the office. Instead I turned around and left the car down the road, in front of Poppy's Grill. Poppy's is Mom's major competition. It's farther away from Fountain Square but it has cold beer to carry-out.
I locked the . . . bag in the trunk.
But I went to the luncheonette instead of up to my office. It was pushing one-thirty. What with one regurgitation or another, I was starving.
Policemen are also better faced with high blood sugar levels. I walked in the door and found Quentin Quayle playing on the pinball machine.
“Oh, Jesus H. Doughnut,” I said.
From behind the counter, Norman said, “Mustard or relish with that?”
Poet won a replay. I heard him say, “Oh, splendid.”
I approached the counter. “Where's my mother?” I asked Norman.
“She went to see her lawyer. I got a chicken steak left.”
“What's she doing at the lawyer?”
“Making her will.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Everybody should make a will. It saves all kinds of trouble later on.”
“You made yours?” I asked.
Beside me a pear-shaped man in a sweat-stained Stetson said, “Hem.”
Norman said to me, “While you read the menu I'll look after this paying customer.”
Read the menu! I damn well painted it and hung it on the wall.
Quayle won another replay.
The Stetson pear ordered the steak.
I considered a theatrical exit and going down the street to eat at Poppy's.
But eating in a place like that could be risky. To my certain knowledge there are sometimes bombs in the trunks of cars parked outside Poppy's.
I bent over the counter and chuckled to myself.
I continued to be amused as I went behind the counter to pour myself a cup of coffee.
I was laughing as I carried it toward the pinball machine. I spilled some into the saucer. I was in danger of working myself up to a genuine giggle fit.
“Oh dear,” I said. “Oh dear.”
I set my coffee on the table closest to Quayle's action and asked, “What the hell are you doing here, Poet?”
“Wait,” Quayle told me. “I'm winning replays!”
I went back to the counter. As I passed Norman I said, “BLT, no mayo, on rye and a bowl of chili.” He made no acknowledgment that he had heard me.
I went to the doorway that leads into the house. There I flipped one of several electrical switches, waited a moment and flipped it back.
I returned to the table with my cup on it and sat down.
Quentin Quayle was cursing and hitting the machine.
“Problem?” I asked.
“I couldn't put a flipper wrong and then the damn thing suddenly went off.”
“You must have tilted,” I said.
“Rubbish!”
“Did all the lights go off and then come back on again?”
“Yeah.”
“Tilt,” I said. “Gotta be. Come here a minute, Poet. Take a seat.”
He came and sat.
I moved my chair closer to his. I beckoned to him to listen up. I said in a loud whisper, “What the fuck are you doing here?”
But as he often did, he answered his own interrogator. “I didn't see you drive up.” He looked out the window. “Where's your car?”
“Poet, answer my question or you're a dead man.”
He leaned back and raised his eyebrows and inhaled. “Well, Albert, old chum, I hate to do this to you, but I'm taking you off the case.”
“What case?”
“Surveillance of Charlotte. No hard feelings, I hope, but I want my money back.”
“What money?”
“I gave you a thousand dollars. There must be some left.” I considered. Probably there was. I said, “O.K. When I get a chance I'll draw up your bill and give you your change.”
“I'd like it now.”
“Well, you can't have it now.”
“Why not?”
“Because,” I said with British understatement, “I've got more important things to do than work on your account.”
He pouted for a moment.
“Besides,” I said, “Why all of a sudden don't you want Charlotte Vivien followed anymore? Is she marrying somebody else?”
“She did see a man last night,” Quayle said in a lowered voice. “We followed her to this incredibly scruffy bar and she met someone there.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Ugly,” Quayle said. “And old.”
I looked surprised.
“I didn't see him myself, of course, but Bobbie Lee described the guy to me.”
“Oh,” I said.
“And he was dirty too, this ugly old man.”
“Hard to imagine what Mrs. Vivien's interest in someone like that could be.”
“I could hardly believe it. She's always seemed so fastidious.”
“Yes,” I said.
“She's a wonderful woman,” Quayle said. “So you keep saying.”
“Not Charlotte.”
“What?”
“Bobbie Lee,” he said. And he sighed.
I just stared at him
“She's so . . . so competent and sure. Of course she's not educated to a high standard. Your system here is so punitive to people without financial resources. But she's genuinely intelligent and earthily perceptive in a way that the culture vultures like Charlotte could never be.”
I sipped from my coffee.
“And it is incredible the way she's supported little Bill, Nora and Glenn.”
“Who?”
“The handicapped triplets. And now her dementing mother as well. Bobbie's life story is a distillation of the attractive face of feminism. She's so spunky and quick and strong.”
“And imaginative.”
“And, of course, she's got that great body and those beautiful chocolate-brown eyes.”
“She has?”
“Oh yes,” he said. “I'm a poet. I notice things like that.”
“Sounds like you're in love again, Poet.”
“Albert,” he said, “I am.”
“And tell me, do you think the lady returns your feelings?”
“I think,” he said, looking me in the eye, “that she thinks I am less of a jackass than she originally thought.”
Self-awareness now? For once I was impressed.
“Well,” I said. “Good luck to you.”
Norman arrived with my BLT and chili. He said, “These both for you, Albie, or is one for your date?”
I rose and said, “Norman Tubbs. Quentin Quayle. You guys ought to get acquainted. I think you have a lot in common.”
Poet said, “How do you do?”
Norman said, “You're not related to S. Quentin Quail of the Bonafide Oil Company, by any chance.”
“You like the Marx Brothers?” Poet asked.
“Love them.”
“Me too.”
“Hang on,” I said. “Will somebody tell me what's going on here?”
Dismissively Norman said, “S. Quentin Quail is the character Groucho played in Go West.’‘ Then to Poet he said, “Why don't you come over to the counter. Albie can probably just about cut up his food for himself.”
And without another word they left me—struck dumb and mouth hanging open.