Moon gave a little laugh laced with triumph. “Ah, Jewell,” he cried out to the empty room. “Ah,
He was a busy man with a heavy social docket. He was much like his pal Darryl Grayson that way. In great demand by the ladies.
There was another message on the tape. She didn’t identify herself, didn’t need to. It was a voice he had heard every day for twenty years.
“Oh, Archie, where are you! Everything’s gone crazy, I feel like I’m losing my mind. Call me, please…for God’s sake, call me!”
He picked up the telephone and punched in a number. Hung up, tried again, hung up, replayed the message.
“Goddammit, honey,” he said to the far wall. “How the hell am I supposed to call you if you’re over there blabbin‘ on the goddamn phone?”
He tried again and hung up.
I heard him move. I stepped back to one side, leaning against the receptionist’s desk with my left hand flat on some papers. I rolled my eyes around and looked out to the deserted street. My eyes made the full circle and ended up staring down at the desk where my hand was.
At the stack of mail he had thrown there.
At the letter Eleanor had mailed from the Hilton.
I touched the paper, felt the lump of something solid inside. A federal crime to take it: not much time to decide.
“Janeway.” He was standing right there, three feet away. “Where’d you come from? You look like you been rode hard and put away wet.”
“You got the wet part right.” I leaned back from the desk, trying not to be too obvious. “And, yeah, I been rode pretty hard, too.”
“How’d you get in here? I didn’t hear the door.”
“Just walked right in. Saw the light, came in, heard you back there on the phone…thought I’d sit on the desk and wait till you’re done.”
“Half-blind and now I can’t hear either. What’s on your mind?”
“I’ve been thinking some about that cabin of yours.”
“I guess I told you I’d give you a tour of God’s country, didn’t I? Can’t say I expected you tonight, though.”
“Just thought I’d come by and see if the offer’s still good.”
“Yeah, sure it is. Why wouldn’t it be? If you’re still around in a few days…”
“You get up there much?”
“Not anymore, not like I used to. It’s too hard to make a living these days; I gotta work Saturdays and sometimes Sundays and I’m gettin‘ too damn old and too slow. Two or three times a year is all.”
He held his hand up to his eyes. “Let’s step on back in the shop. That bright light’s playing hell with me.”
I followed him around and leaned against the doorjamb, keeping my hands in my pockets and letting my eyes work the room. It was a busy printer’s printshop, cluttered with half-finished jobs and the residue of last week’s newspaper. Long scraps of newsprint had been ripped out and thrown on the floor. Paper was piled in rolls in the corner, and in stacks on hand trucks and dollies. A fireman’s nightmare, you’d have to think. He had a Chandler and Price like Rigby’s, a Linotype, and an offset press that took a continuous feed of newsprint from a two-foot roll.
He stood in the shadows a few feet away. “Crystal said you’re still trying to find Ellie. Havin‘ any luck?”
“As a matter of fact, I’m having a helluva time just getting people to talk to me.”
“Maybe you’re asking the wrong people.”
“I don’t know, Archie, you’d think the people who’re supposed to love her would be knocking me down to help. But everybody seems more interested in pandering to the vanity of a dead man than finding that girl.”
This bristled him good. I thought it might.
“Who’s everybody? Who the hell are you talking about?”
“Crystal…and Rigby.”
“Hell, that’s easy enough to understand.”
“Then make me understand it.”
“Why do I smell an attitude here? It oughta be obvious what their problem is, if you came at them the way you just came at me.”
