WHEN I FINISHED EATING I made an unnoticed escape through the house to my office. The new soulmates probably wouldn't have cared anyway, but I didn't want to take a chance.
Despite the comfort of a full belly, I was nervous as I opened the door to my quarters. I let it swing wide before I went into my bedroom. But there was no one inside and no obvious sign of a recent visit.
I felt foolish, but I had had a hell of a few days. Nothing seemed genuinely to surprise me anymore except lack of surprises.
The observation didn't make enough sense to be poetic. I considered it, therefore, to be philosophic.
There wasn't even any mail.
There were, however, messages on my answering machine. But before I listened to them I showered and changed into fresh clothes and became a new man and managed not to think of bombers for seconds at a stretch.
There were five messages in all.
The first of the day was from Bobbie Lee. She asked me to call and to tell her answering machine to wake her up.
The next three messages were, incredibly, from prospective new clients.
Finally, Frank spoke urgently of the need for eight hundred dollars.
Nothing on the machine was more important than my seeing Miller.
Yet I hesitated.
What I wanted to say to Miller wasn't clear in my head.
I found myself feeling that I shouldn't rush to the police just yet.
And one reason for delaying was the image of my little friend
Sick.
There was no justification, philosophic or poetic, for Kathryn Morgason doing what she had done. But in a world as barbarous and cruel as this one, where the suffering inflicted for personal gain is immeasurable, I did not believe that Kathryn Morgason had done enough to deserve having the key thrown away.
Judge Samson was it now?
Well, why not? Judge Samson was at least as “wise” as any other judge.
But I also hesitated to spill my guts to Miller because I did not feel that I understood enough about what had happened and why.
And what responsible judge would make a decision without all the facts?
Yet there was a bomb in my car.
I don't make life easy for myself.
I sat for a while at my desk. I tried to begin a list. Things I could do. Options. But before long I found myself doodling. Wavy lines became hands. The hands acquired spots. The spots began to take erotic forms.
Then the telephone rang.
As I picked it up I realized that I shouldn't have. It could be Miller. It should be Miller.
I said, “You have reached the Albert Samson Investigative Services Agency. Mr. Samson cannot come to the telephone right now but if you will leave your name and tel—”
“Bull shit,’‘ Bobbie Lee said.
“Ah.”
“I wanted to let you know that I am awake and I'm ready to drive over in case you are the slightest bit interested in a pretty unusual surveillance report. But, gee, Mr. Samson, sir, if you are too important these days to get reports from—”
“I'm sorry,” I said. “I was afraid you were the police.”
After a pause she said, “I didn't think you ran that kind of operation.”
“I don't,” I said. “It's a complicated story. But come to the office, please. I'll be here.”
“I don't want to get mixed up with the police. They take too goddamn much time.”
“You won't. In fact,” I said, improvising, “I have more work for you.” I looked at the list of client calls on my pad. Well, why not? “A lot more work.”
She thought about that.
“But watch yourself when you get here. Quentin Quayle is downstairs.”
“You know, Albert,” she said, “that guy isn't quite the jackass you think he is.”
Bobbie Lee Leonard look tired. “Late night?” I asked.
“If you've seen Quentin, you know damn well it was,” she said.
“We didn't talk about it.”
She smiled. “Hasn't he got the cutest way of saying things?”
“It's what he says I have the problem with.”
“Well, you want this report or not?”
“I do.”
She took a notebook from her handbag. “On paper it's only a list of where and when. I haven't had a chance to write it up fancy and make the client think he's got his money's worth.”
“He thinks he got his money's worth all right.”
“So verbal is all right?”
“And simple. I just want to know what happened.”
“Well, the Vivien woman went out in the early evening and she headed downtown, only she stopped at a public phone on the way and made a call.”
“O.K.”
“Then she went to a little bar out East Washington and met this man.”
“Yeah. I've heard about the 'scruffy' bar and the ugly, dirty old man with halitosis, dandruff and a patch over one eye.
“I guess I forgot to mention he didn't wear no underwear and only had the one ball.”
“Yeah yeah.”
“But I don't understand why you hire me to follow somebody and don't tell me you are going to meet her yourself.”
“I didn't know.”
“No?”
“Quentin identified the dress in the picture you drew as one of Mrs. Vivien's. So after you left I called her and she agreed to meet me.”
“So you were on another case? The picture case?”
“Yeah. So where did Mrs. Vivien go after she left the bar?”
“She stopped at another phone booth and this time she made two calls, not one.”
“To what numbers?”
“You wish,” Bobbie Lee said.
“And then?”
“Then,” she said, “she went to a motel out Washington Street.”
“A motel?”
“Just the other side of 465. She went into reception and was there for a few minutes and came out with some keys.”
“Quentin must have been having a fit.”
“He didn't say.”
“And once Mrs. Vivien had her keys?”
“She drove away. And she went to a shopping center and found another phone and made two more calls.”
“Uh-huh.”
“And then she went into a supermarket.”
“Hang on.”
“And bought a bag of groceries and about ten o'clock she went back to the motel and went into a room.”
“Alone?”
“The room was dark when she went; in. Lights came on as she closed the door.”
“O.K.”
“We parked where we could see pretty good but nothing happened. Once she had been in there for a while I went to reception and talked to the clerk. It cost you money, but I found out that Mrs. Vivien booked three rooms, all in a row. And the one she'd gone into was the middle room.”
“Hmmm.”
“Then people started arriving. First a woman, in a BMW. Then two more together, in a Ford.”
“Women?”
“Yeah. All white. First one was maybe five feet tall and she moved well, you know? Athletically. In her thirties I'd guess, but I didn't get a good look. She wore a long jacket and a scarf. The other two, one was older and one was younger. Both about five four or five. They had long jackets on too, and scarves. The two together had a couple of suitcases.”
I just sat.
“This stuff mean something to you?”
“I can't quite believe it but it does.”
“Do I get to ask what?”
I said nothing.
“I thought not,” she said. “That's one of the reasons I've got time for Quentin. He may not say it in words, but you always know where you are with him.”
I shrugged.
“Is something wrong?”
I said, “Did you get the plate numbers?”
“Of course.”
“Bobbie Lee, did you put them through to get the owners?”
She grinned. Her tongue played in the gap between her teeth. “Sure did, boss.” She flipped a page in her notebook. “You want the list?”
I nodded.
“BMW is registered to a guy named Morgason.”
“And the Ford?”
“Lillian Ray. You want the addresses?”
“Not now. Finish the report.”
The page came back. But instead of beginning again she said, “You all right?”
“Great.”
“You look like shit.”
I said nothing.
“Well, all these women went to the room Mrs. Vivien was in.”
“What time did the last two get there?”
“Ten past eleven.”
“And then?”
“Quentin and I waited outside till five-fifteen.”
“Nobody came out?”
“Nobody. And the lights stayed on.”
“Nobody else went in?”
“I would have said.”
“Bobbie Lee, might they still be there now?”