NINA BOONE SHOWED UP at fourteen minutes past one, which was par and therefore called for no comment one way or the other. I met her as she emerged, steered her to where I was parked just west of the entrance, and opened the door. She climbed in. I turned to observe, and, as I expected, there one was, looking left and right. He was not an acquaintance and I didn’t know his name, but I had seen him around. I crossed to him and said:
“I’m Archie Goodwin, Nero Wolfe’s handy man. If you’d been on her heels you’d have seen her get in my car there. I can’t ask you to ride with us because I’m working on her, but here’s some choices. I’ll wait till you get a taxi, and I’ll bet you a finiff I lose you in less than ten minutes; or I’ll grease you to miss the trail right here. Two bits. Fifteen cents now and the other dime when I see a copy of your report. If-”
“I’ve been told,” he said, “that there are only two ways to deal with you. One is to shoot you, and this is too public. The other-give me the fifteen cents.”
“Okay.” I fished for three nickels and handed them to him. “It’s on the NIA. Actually I don’t care. We’re going to Ribeiro’s, the Brazilian restaurant on Fifty-second Street.”
I went and got in the car beside my victim, started the engine, and rolled.
A corner table in the side room at Ribeiro’s is a good place to talk. The food is no great treat to one who gets fed by Fritz Brenner three times a day, but it goes down all right, there is no music, and you can wave a fork in any direction without stabbing anybody except your own companion.
“I don’t believe,” Nina said after we had ordered, “that anyone has recognized me. Anyhow no one is staring at me. I guess all obscure people think it would be wonderful to be a celebrity and have people look at you and point you out in restaurants and places. I know I did. Now I simply can’t stand it. It makes me want to scream at them. Of course I might not feel that way if my picture had been in the papers because I was a movie star or because I had done something worth while-you know, remarkable.”
So, I thought, she wanted someone besides Aunt Luella to talk to. Okay, let her talk.
“And yet,” I told her, “you must have had your share of staring before this happened. You’re not actually unsightly.”
“No?” She didn’t try to smile. “How do you know? The way I look now.”
I inspected her. “It’s a bad time to judge,” I admitted. “Your eyes are puffy and you’ve been clamping your jaw so much that your chin juts. But still there’s enough to go by for an estimate. The cheekbone curve is very nice, and the temples and forehead are way above the average. The hair, of course, has not been affected at all. Seeing you from behind on the sidewalk, one man out of three would walk faster to get a look at you from the side or the front.”
“Oh? And the other two?”
“My lord,” I protested, “what do you want for nothing? One out of three is tremendous. I was piling it on, merely because your hair happens to appeal to me and I might go so far as to break into a trot.”
“Then next time I’ll sit with my back to you.” She moved her hand to her lap to make room for the waiter. “I’ve been wanting to ask you, and you’ve got to tell me, who was it that told you to ask me where Ed Erskine was?”
“Not yet. My rule with a girl is to spend the first fifteen minutes discussing her looks. There’s always a chance I’ll say something that appeals to her, and then it’s smooth sailing. Besides, it wouldn’t be in good taste to start working on you while we’re eating. I’m supposed to drag everything out of you, so that’s what I’ll have to do, but I shouldn’t start on it until the coffee, and by that time, if I’m any good, I’ll have you in a frame of mind to let me even copy down your Social Security number.”
“I would hate to miss that.” She did try to smile. “It would be interesting to see you do it. But I promised my aunt I’d be back at the hotel by two-thirty-and by the way, I promised to bring you with me. Will you come?”
My brows went up. “To see Mrs. Boone?”
“Yes.”
“She wants to see me?”
“Yes. Maybe only for fifteen minutes to discuss her looks. She didn’t say.”
“With girls over fifty, five is enough.”
“She’s not over fifty. She’s forty-three.”
“Five is still enough. But if we only have till two-thirty I’m afraid we’d better start without taking time to break down your resistance. How do you feel? Have you noticed any inclination to melt or relax or put your head on my shoulder?”
“Not the slightest.” Her tone carried conviction. “The only impulse I’ve had was to pull your hair.”
“Then it’ll be a wonder,” I said regretfully, “if you loosen up enough to tell me what size shoes you wear. However we’ll see, as soon as he gets through serving. You haven’t finished your cocktail.”
She did so. The waiter gave us each a steaming plate of shrimps, cooked with cheese and covered with a spicy sauce, and individual bowls of salad on which he had just sprinkled a thin dressing. Nina speared a shrimp with her fork, decided it was too hot to go in whole, halved it, and conveyed a portion to her mouth. She was in no mood for tasting food, but she tasted that, and immediately got some more on her fork.
“I like this,” she said. “Go on and drag things out of me.”
I finished chewing my second shrimp and swallowed it. “My technique is a little unusual,” I told her. “For instance, not only are all ten of you people being followed around, to see what you’re up to now, but also your pasts are being drained through cheesecloth. How do you like this cheese?”
“I like it. I love it.”
“Good. We’ll come here often. There are probably a hundred men-no, more than that, I forgot how important this case is-investigating your people’s pasts, to find out, for example, if Mrs. Boone was having secret
