Flythe repressed a sigh. Why did these stupid cows always act as if one night changed all the guidelines?
He slipped on his jacket and said, 'Rule one: Don't call me Teddy. Rule two: No fraternization during business hours. Rule three: When I say haul ass, I expect it to be hauled.
The girl's brown eyes widened and for a moment, Ted Flythe thought she was going to go sulky on him. Instead, she gracefully rolled onto the floor, sashayed across the room to gather up her clothes, and with a hip- swinging, exaggerated shuffle toward the bathroom, said, 'yessuh, Mr. Bossman! Coming right up! I'se haulin' jest as fast as I kin haul. Yessuh!'
As her sassy little round bottom disappeared behind the door, Flythe grinned appreciatively. He might just have to add her name and number to his rotary file. Let's see now, was she Marcie or Trish?
The windows of Vassily Ivanovich's efficiency apartment overlooked the United Nations complex. With the sashes thrown wide, the big Russian was puffing through his daily exercise routine, a variation of the Royal Canadian Air Force plan with a dozen deep knee bends thrown in for good measure. Not bad for an old man, he thought, as he duck-walked back and forth in the cool morning air.
On the dresser was a long message from his son back in Moscow. Ivanovich accepted philosophically the evidence that his friendship with an American naval officer was under scrutiny and the subject of communiques back and forth, but he did think his son would have more understanding of what he'd intended this trip to be. Alexei's message was almost schizoid in its effort to admonish and exhort without giving anyone any ammunition to use against either of them.
Ah well, thought Ivanovich. The boy is yet young.
He closed the windows but lingered fora moment to contemplate the gleaming buildings, of the UN, buildings that hadn't even existed when he and his old friend roared into port near the end of the war. Already there were those who said it should be torn down, moved to another country, that nothing good had come from the millions of words spoken there these forty years.
The year was beginning to turn. Perhaps even now snow was falling on the Valdai Hills above his village. Perhaps it was time to go home.
But first there was one thing more to be done.
The efficient Miss Vaughan had left several sheets of messages neatly stacked on Zachary Wolferman's gleaming desk in the study. Breakfast over-despite Emily's coaxing, he'd only wanted tea and a few bites of toast- Haines Froelick turned the pages slowly, mechanically noting each name. Many of them recalled fleeting memories of times past; of weekends, dinners, long-ago parties or
committee meetings.
A longish message from Zachary's lawyer caught his eye. It would appear that at some time in the past, his cousin had prepared detailed instructions for his own funeral. Mr. Froelick read them carefully. As far as he could tell, the arrangements he'd begun yesterday were in accordance with Zachary's wishes: the correct church, the desired undertaker, even the pallbearers. Entombment would, of course, be in the family vault in Greenwood. As a final request, Zachary had asked that two small objects of sentimental value be entombed with him. One was a gold locket containing the picture of a girl who died of influenza in 1939; the other was an Austrian schilling that he'd carried as a good luck piece.
Emily and Miss Vaughan had located the locket, and Mr. Froelick opened it to look at the sweet young face inside. Zachary always said Maria's death robbed him of the only girl he could ever marry, but Mr. Froelick privately believed that even had Maria lived, she could not have gotten him to the altar.
The schilling, however, was anotherm atter. He and Zachary were mischievous lads climbing upon an equestrian statue in Graz one rainy summer day when Zachary found the coin tucked beneath a massive hoof. As soon as he touched it, the sun came out and Zachary declared it was an omen. After that, he carried the schilling all the time.
Zachary was not exactly superstitious, Haines had decided, but certainly that schilling had taken on certain quasi-mythical proportions over the years.
It had given him the confidence to do his best on school examinations and turning it between his fingers seemed to help him focus on the right decisions at work; so it was only fitting that Zachary should face the next world with his schilling in his pocket, thought Mr. Froelick.
According to Miss Vaughan's tidy memo, the housekeeper had been unable to locate it, so Miss Vaughan had spoken by telephone to a police sergeant in charge of personal property and learned that while the police were holding Mr. Wolferman's wallet, wristwatch, rings, and other small items found uponh is person Friday night, they had no schilling.
She had then taken it upon herself to call the undertaker, who disavowed any knowledge of the coin's existence. Her call to the Hotel Maintenon had been equally unsuccessful she wrote. Could Mr. Froelick suggest further places to look?
Mr. Froelick could not. Unless perhaps it had been flung under a table Friday night and lay hidden among the debris? Possibly it was still in that room. He seemed to recall that premises were often sealed by the police in cases like this. But surely not for very long when they were part of a public hotel? Even now, the Maintenon's personnel might be sweeping or vacuuming or whatever they did. He could telephone but messages relayed through a third party would not convey the urgency of the situation.
Surely he owed this much to Zachary?
Sighing, he touched an intercom button on the desk and spoke to the kitchen. 'Emily? Would you ask Willis to bring the car around, please?'
With her three-inch heels tucked inside an attache case and scuffed sneakers on her feet, Molly Baldwin dashed for her bus as the driver eased off the brake.
The Sunday morning was still too fresh and sunny to have eroded the driver's temper, so he kept the door open and let her hop on instead of grinding away from the curb as he might have on a busier rainy weekday.
'That was awfully nice of you,' Molly smiled, dropping her coins into the meter. She always exaggerated her disappearing Florida drawl for bus drivers and cabbies. It usually made them more helpful, she'd found. She hated to be snarled at, though goodness knows she'd had to learn to take it since coming to New York.
Not that Madame Ronay snarled, she thought, taking a seat near the middle of the lurching bus; but she certainly could make life miserable when she was displeased about anything. If she knew about Teejy-
Molly shut her mind to that avenue of thought. Madame Ronay
And neither did Ted Flythe. And all she had to do was keep a firm grip on herself and remember that this cribbage tournament would end tonight and, with it, all her problems.
17
BY the time Sigrid had walked up to West Twenty-third Street and back down again, her headache was gone and color had returned to her thin cheeks. She even slipped her arm out of the sling and went to look over the shoulder of the artist who sat on the rotting pier at the foot of her street. The artist looked up, gave her a friendly smile, and kept sketching. A horn tooted along West Street. Sigrid paid no attention until it tooted again and someone called, 'Lieutenant? Lieutenant Harald!'
