LENNIE SELTZER CALLED me two days later at my office. Neither Maynard nor Floyd does any betting at all I can find out about,“ he said.
”Sonovabitch,“ I said.
”Screw up a theory?“
”Yeah. How sure are you?“
”Pretty sure. Can’t be positive, but I been in business here a long time.“
”Goddamn,“ I said.
”I hear that Maynard used to bet a lot, and he got into the hole with a guy and couldn’t pay up and the guy sold the paper to a shylock. Pretty good deal, the guy said. Shylock gave him seventy cents on the dollar.“
I said, ”Aha.“
Seltzer said, ”Huh?“
I said, ”Never mind, just thinking out loud. What’s the shylock’s name?“
”Wally Hogg. Real name’s Walter Hogarth. Works for Frank Doerr.“
”Short, fat person, smokes cigars?“
”Yeah, know him?“
”I’ve seen him around,“ I said. ”Does he always work for Doerr, or does he free-lance?“
”I don’t know of him free-lancing. I also don’t know many guys like me ever made a profit talking about Frank Doerr.“
”Yeah, I know, Lennie. Okay, thanks.“
He hung up. I held the phone for a minute and looked up at the ceiling. Seventy cents on the dollar. That was a good rate. Doerr must have had some confidence in Maynard’s ability to pay. I looked at my watch: 11:45. I was supposed to meet Brenda Loring in the Public Garden for a picnic lunch.
Her treat. I put on my jacket, locked the office, and headed out.
She was already there when I arrived, sitting on the grass beside the swan boat pond with a big wicker basket beside her.
”A hamper?“ I said. ”A genuine wicker picnic hamper like in Abercrombie and Fitch?“
”I think you’re supposed to admire me first,“ she said, ”then the food basket. I’ve always been suspicious of your value system.“
”You look good enough to eat,“ I said.
”I think I won’t pursue that line,“ she said. She was wearing a pale blue linen suit and an enormous white straw hat. All the young executive types looked at her as they strolled by with their lunches hidden in attache cases. ”Tell me about your travels.“
”I had a terrific blackberry pie in Illinois and a wonderful roast duck in New York.“
”Oh, I’m glad for you. Did you also encounter any clues?“ She opened the hamper as she talked and took out a red-and-white-checked tablecloth and spread it between us.
The day was warm and still, and the cloth lay quiet on the ground.
”Yeah. I found out a lot of things and all of them are bad. I think. It’s kind of complicated at the moment.“
She took dark blue glossy-finish paper plates out of the hamper and set them out on the cloth. ”Tell me about it.
Maybe it’ll help you sort out the complicated parts.“
I was looking into the hamper. ”Is that wine in there?“
I said. She took my nose and turned my head away.
”Be patient,“ she said. ”I went to a lot of trouble to arrange this and bring it out one item at a time and impress the hell out of you, and I’ll not have it spoiled.“
”Instinct,“ I said. ”Remember I’m a trained sleuth.“
”Tell me about your trip.“ She put out two sets of what looked like real silver.
”Okay, Rabb’s got reason to be dumping a game or two.“
”Oh, that’s too bad.“
”Yeah. Mrs. Rabb isn’t who she’s supposed to be. She’s a kid from lower-middle America who smoked a little dope early and ran off with a local hotshot when she was eighteen.
She went to New York, was a whore for a while, and went into acting. Her acting was done with her clothes off in films distributed by mail. She started out turning tricks in one-night cheap hotels. Then she graduated to a high- class call girl operation run, or at least fronted, by a very swish woman out of a fancy town house on the East Side. That’s when I think she met her husband.“
Brenda placed two big wine goblets in front of us and handed me a bottle of rose and a corkscrew. ”You mean, he was a—what should I call him—a customer?“
”Yeah, I think so. How can I talk and open the wine at the same time? You know my powers of concentration.“
”I’ve heard,“ she said, ”that you can’t walk and whistle at the same time. Just open the wine and then talk
