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Authors: Lawrence Sanders
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cocktail hour and dinner.
I then retired to my one-man dormitory to bring my journal au courant with the day's events. After reading over what I had scribbled, I was dismayed to see how my initial inquiry into the trustworthiness of Theo Johnson appeared to be interacting with the investigation into the murder of Silas Hawkin.
I simply refused to believe that the beautiful Madam X could possibly be involved in that heinous crime. But then Lucrezia Borgia was hardly a gorgon, and neither was Lizzie Borden. It was all enough to make one ponder the advantages of celibacy.
Which I did, and finally decided there were none.
5
A weekend intruded here, and a very welcome intrusion it was. For two sun-spangled days I was able to enact my favorite role of blade-about-town. On Saturday morning I played tennis with Binky Watrous on his private court— and lost. I treated Connie Garcia to lunch at the Pelican Club, challenged her to a game of darts—and lost. In the evening I played poker with a group of intemperate cronies—and lost.
I was more successful on Sunday. I spent most of the afternoon gamboling on the beach with Connie and a Frisbee, and demolishing a bottle of a chilled Soave I had never tried before. Tangy is the word. Then we picked up two slabs of ribs barbecued with a Cajun sauce and returned to Connie's digs with a cold six-pack of Heineken. A pleasant time was had by all. I was home and in bed by ten o'clock and asleep by 10:05, sunburned, slightly squiffed, exhausted, and oh so content.
I overslept on Monday morning, as usual, and found a deserted kitchen when I bounced downstairs. I fixed myself a mug of instant black, and built an interracial sandwich: ham on bagel.
I used the kitchen phone to call the office. I asked Mrs. Trelawney if the honcho could spare me a few moments that morning. She put me on hold, and I listened to wallpaper music a few minutes while she went to check. She returned to tell me His Majesty would grant me ten minutes at precisely eleven o'clock.
"Thank you, Mrs. T.," I said. "Tell me, have you ever cooked a goose—or vice versa?"
"Why, no," she said. "But I once took a tramp in the woods."
She hung up cackling, and I trotted out to my chariot, much refreshed by that silly exchange of ancient corn.
Twenty minutes later I was in my crypt at the McNally Building and lighted my first English Oval of the day, considering it a reward for having spent the entire weekend without a gasper. On my desk was a sheaf of faxed replies to my inquiries to national credit agencies regarding the financial status of Theodosia and Hector Johnson.
I read them all slowly and carefully, and, to put it succinctly, my flabber was gasted. It was not that they contained derogatory information about the Johnsons; they contained no information at all.
If those reports were to be believed, Theo and Hector had never had a credit card, never had a charge account, never bought anything on time, never made a loan or had a mortgage, never purchased anything from a mail order catalogue, never received a government check for whatever reason, had no insurance, owned no assets such as real estate, stocks, bonds, or other securities, and had never filed a tax return.
Improbable, would you say? Nay, dear reader. Utterly impossible! In our society even a toddler of three has already left a paper trail, carefully recorded on a computer somewhere. I refused to believe that two adults had no financial background whatsoever. Even if they scrupulously paid cash for all their purchases, what was the source of the cash and why was there no mention of bank accounts, checking and savings, and no record of having paid federal, state, and local taxes?
They had names and Social Security numbers. And that's all their dossiers revealed.
I tried to puzzle it out, resisting the urge to light another cigarette. The more I gnawed at it, the more ridiculous it seemed to me that the Johnsons could be totally without a
I then retired to my one-man dormitory to bring my journal au courant with the day's events. After reading over what I had scribbled, I was dismayed to see how my initial inquiry into the trustworthiness of Theo Johnson appeared to be interacting with the investigation into the murder of Silas Hawkin.
I simply refused to believe that the beautiful Madam X could possibly be involved in that heinous crime. But then Lucrezia Borgia was hardly a gorgon, and neither was Lizzie Borden. It was all enough to make one ponder the advantages of celibacy.
Which I did, and finally decided there were none.
5
A weekend intruded here, and a very welcome intrusion it was. For two sun-spangled days I was able to enact my favorite role of blade-about-town. On Saturday morning I played tennis with Binky Watrous on his private court— and lost. I treated Connie Garcia to lunch at the Pelican Club, challenged her to a game of darts—and lost. In the evening I played poker with a group of intemperate cronies—and lost.
I was more successful on Sunday. I spent most of the afternoon gamboling on the beach with Connie and a Frisbee, and demolishing a bottle of a chilled Soave I had never tried before. Tangy is the word. Then we picked up two slabs of ribs barbecued with a Cajun sauce and returned to Connie's digs with a cold six-pack of Heineken. A pleasant time was had by all. I was home and in bed by ten o'clock and asleep by 10:05, sunburned, slightly squiffed, exhausted, and oh so content.
I overslept on Monday morning, as usual, and found a deserted kitchen when I bounced downstairs. I fixed myself a mug of instant black, and built an interracial sandwich: ham on bagel.
I used the kitchen phone to call the office. I asked Mrs. Trelawney if the honcho could spare me a few moments that morning. She put me on hold, and I listened to wallpaper music a few minutes while she went to check. She returned to tell me His Majesty would grant me ten minutes at precisely eleven o'clock.
"Thank you, Mrs. T.," I said. "Tell me, have you ever cooked a goose—or vice versa?"
"Why, no," she said. "But I once took a tramp in the woods."
She hung up cackling, and I trotted out to my chariot, much refreshed by that silly exchange of ancient corn.
Twenty minutes later I was in my crypt at the McNally Building and lighted my first English Oval of the day, considering it a reward for having spent the entire weekend without a gasper. On my desk was a sheaf of faxed replies to my inquiries to national credit agencies regarding the financial status of Theodosia and Hector Johnson.
I read them all slowly and carefully, and, to put it succinctly, my flabber was gasted. It was not that they contained derogatory information about the Johnsons; they contained no information at all.
If those reports were to be believed, Theo and Hector had never had a credit card, never had a charge account, never bought anything on time, never made a loan or had a mortgage, never purchased anything from a mail order catalogue, never received a government check for whatever reason, had no insurance, owned no assets such as real estate, stocks, bonds, or other securities, and had never filed a tax return.
Improbable, would you say? Nay, dear reader. Utterly impossible! In our society even a toddler of three has already left a paper trail, carefully recorded on a computer somewhere. I refused to believe that two adults had no financial background whatsoever. Even if they scrupulously paid cash for all their purchases, what was the source of the cash and why was there no mention of bank accounts, checking and savings, and no record of having paid federal, state, and local taxes?
They had names and Social Security numbers. And that's all their dossiers revealed.
I tried to puzzle it out, resisting the urge to light another cigarette. The more I gnawed at it, the more ridiculous it seemed to me that the Johnsons could be totally without a
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