“So you
“Not as often as before. I’m almost used to it now.”
“These letters and pranks getting to you?”
No use lying. “A little.”
I felt him tense. “I guess they worry me, too. Especially because I know you won’t be able to resist trying to track him down.”
“It’s in my nature, Frank. A strong sense of curiosity is one of the things we have in common. You know I can’t ignore these letters. I don’t know why you find that hard to understand.”
“It isn’t hard to understand. There’s just a difference between what I understand and what I feel happy about.”
“I’ll be careful.”
Lots of silence. Finally, he sighed and relaxed a little.
“You worry too much, Frank. Besides, I’m not his target.”
“Not yet,” he said, and the tension returned.
I reached up and started massaging his neck. He murmured something about it feeling good.
“You know what, Frank? I’m really enjoying having two hands.”
“Wrong. I’m the one who’s enjoying it.”
THE NEXT MORNING, I was sitting at my desk, daydreaming about my old friend O’Connor. The desk used to be his, and it took a while for me to learn to say “my desk” when referring to it. It would always be his, of course, and I often felt especially near to him when I sat there. O’Connor was fond of quoting things he had read here and there; he was a walking book of proverbs, old saws, and words of wisdom. He had one for any occasion, but you were especially likely to hear them from him when he had a skinful.
One night at Banyon’s he had been holding forth on the role of the press, and he asked me if I had ever heard of the Greek historian Herodotus. O’Connor was just short of being knee-walking drunk, so I wasn’t even sure I had heard the name right, and said no, I didn’t know about Herodotus.
“Well, my darling,” he said, trying to look me straight in the eye, “Herodotus said a thing or two worth remembering, but my favorite is this: ‘Of all men’s miseries the bitterest is this, to know so much and to have control over nothing.”
How he could pull these things out of his memory when he was soused I’ll never know, but he did it again and again. And he’d remember he had said them the next day and give me a follow-up lesson, if my own hangover would allow for it.
That’s how I happened to be thinking of Herodotus when Frank called.
“I think I know who Thalia is,” he said. “A good candidate, anyway.”
“Who?”
“A woman by the name of Thayer. Rosie Thayer. Owner of Rosie’s Bar and Grill down on Broadway — about six blocks from the paper.”
“I know the place. I’ve never been in there, but I’ve walked past it. How did you come up with her?”
“I asked Missing Persons for a list of everyone reported to them since the day Edna Blaylock was killed. Thayer seems to be a good candidate.”
“Good Cheer — a bar owner?”
“Yes, and a couple of other things. Thayer sounds a little bit like Thalia, and she’s the same age as the Blaylock woman.”
“What?”
“Yeah, she’s fifty-four. I don’t know what to make of that; in fact, I don’t have the complete file on her yet. But I wanted you to know. If it checks out, do you think John would let you run something on her, help us try to find out if anybody has seen her?”
“I’ll ask him.”
“If he says yes, give me a call back. I should have the rest of the file by then. Oh — have you asked Lydia about Christmas?”
“Not yet. I’ll try to ask her on my way out of John’s office.”
But John was busy and I had to wait until a copy editor had finished talking to him. In the meantime, I told Lydia that we were staying in town and ready to invite ourselves to Christmas dinner. She was more than pleased with the news.
“Fantastic! We’ll all be together!”
“You’ll be able to feed two more people?”
“Both nights, without any trouble. Never worry about having enough to eat when a bunch of Italians are doing the cooking.”
Stuart Angert walked over and we started exchanging stories about oddball letters. “I’ve got a fish advocate now,” he said.
“Someone who promotes eating seafood?”
“No, just the opposite. Every time a photo of someone standing next to a big catch appears in the sports section, this woman writes in to say that fishing is cruel and immoral and that printing a photo of a fish carcass is demeaning to the fish.”
