Amelia, her husband, and I were at a table in the Victorian Room at the Palmer House, the hotel where they were staying. I was a frequent diner at the Palmer House, only normally in the basement lunchroom, at the counter. The plushly elegant white and gold room with its draperies of crimson was dominated by a large oil portrait of Queen Victoria; this was at the other end of the room and did not affect our appetites.
“Not really,” she admitted, touching a napkin to her full lips, having just finished a house specialty, the fried squab Ol’ Man River with pan gravy and pimento. “I think my audience is working women, particularly professional women.”
“Well, we’re not going to last long in the marketplace,” Putnam said, “if you insist on high-quality fabrics and low prices.” He’d been the first of us to finish eating, polishing off the potted brisket of beef like it was his last meal.
“Working women need washable, non-wrinkle materials,” she said, sounding like a cross between a commercial and a political statement—not that there was much difference.
“We’re not making a profit yet,” Putnam said.
She shrugged as she pushed away her plate. “The luggage line is doing well.”
“That’s true,” Putnam granted her, obviously not wanting this to turn into an argument. “Very true, and with the lecture series coming up, we should soon be in better shape.”
She glanced at me, obviously uneasy that their personal business was being discussed in front of a stranger. Like me, she didn’t seem to understand why, exactly, I was here.
“Also,” Putnam said brightly, cold eyes glittering behind the rimless glasses, “there’s something I’d like to show you, dear…perhaps after we’ve had dessert.”
She looked at him with what might have been suspicion. “What?”
His eyebrows went up, then down, like Groucho Marx, only not so funny. “Something you’ll like. Something potentially very profitable.”
“May I ask…” She turned to me again, her smile warm and apologetic. “…and I mean no offense, Mr. Heller…” And now she turned back to her husband. “…if there’s a reason why we’re discussing business in a social setting?”
“I think you probably already know the answer to that one, A. E.”
“Simpkin,” she said to him, a nickname she’d already used several times over our sumptuous, expensive meal, “I’ve told you a dozen times I don’t take any of that seriously. It’s the sort of thing people in the public eye just have to put up with.”
“I disagree,” he said with a frown, then flicked a finger in my direction. “At least you could do me the courtesy of getting a professional opinion from Nate, here. After all, security is his field. Didn’t he do a fine job this evening?”
Amelia smiled and shook her head, then said to me, again, “I mean no offense, Mr. Heller, but—”
“I agree with you,” I told her, giving up on the goulash. “I’ll be damned if I know what your husband is so impressed with about me.”
Putnam’s thin line of a mouth flinched in a momentary scowl; then he said, “To be quite honest, A. E., I did some checking around about our guest.”
“Slim recommended him,” she said, with a tiny shrug. “You told me.”
“Actually,” Putnam said, “it was George Leisure who first mentioned Mr. Heller.”
He really had been checking up on me. “How do you know George Leisure?” I asked, almost irritated.
“Golfing pal,” Putnam said. “Mr. Heller, I’m told you’re discreet, and you have a certain familiarity with the special needs of the famous. Of celebrities.”
There was some truth in that, though the retail credit firms I did the bulk of my work for—not to mention the husbands and/or wives looking to get the dirt on their spouses that made up most of the rest of my accounts receivable book—weren’t exactly household names.
“I suppose so,” I said, just as the waiter arrived with dessert. We had all ordered the house specialty—Creole Juanita, a yam pudding—and Putnam and I were having coffee with it. Amelia had cocoa, explaining she drank neither coffee nor tea. A non-tea-drinking teetotaler.
“My wife has received some threatening letters,” Putnam said, spooning his pudding.
“Everybody in my position receives threatening letters,” she said, mildly impatient.
I touched her sleeve, lightly. “Now it’s my turn to ask you not to take offense…but there is no one in this country, no one in the world, who’s in your position. I’ll be glad to listen to what’s been going on, and give you my best reading…no extra charge, no obligation.”
She had a lot of nice smiles, but this one—faint but fetching—was my favorite so far. “That’s very decent of you, Mr. Heller.”
“Hey, you paid for my services this evening,” I said, dipping a spoon into my Creole Juanita, “and bought me a nice meal. How can I help?”
Putnam didn’t have the notes with him, but as he described them, this seemed fairly typical celebrity harassment—letters were assembled via cut-out words lifted from newspapers and magazines, not asking for a ransom—just hateful, threatening messages: YOU WILL FALL TO EARTH, THE CRASH IS COMING.
“How many of these notes have you received?” I asked.
“Three,” Amelia said. She was eating her pudding, not terribly worked up about this subject. The stuff was pretty much pumpkin pie without the crust, by the way.
