Grofield smiled after her as she left the room. Easiest thing in the world, and a nice pleasant way to fill the mornings and afternoons between now and work time. A lot more fun than tantalizing Feds, too.
Parker was crazy, moving out on something like this.
She came back eventually with two cups of black coffee on a tray. She set it down on the coffee table and went over to the bar, saying, ‘I don’t understand you guys, and I’ve met a million of you.’
Grofield didn’t believe there were a million of him. He said, ‘Such as?’
‘Married, but on the prowl. If you’re gonna keep going back to the wife, why leave her? If you’re going to keep leaving her, why go back?’
‘Two different things,’ Grofield told her, thinking he ought to call Mary today. He’d do it when he left here.
‘Two different things,’ echoed Crystal. ‘I don’t get it.’ She came over with a bottle of whisky. ‘Where’s your wife now? In town here?’
‘Good God, no. In Estes Park, Colorado.’
‘Is that where you live? How much of this stuff should we pour in?’
‘As much as the cup will hold, my dear. Very nice. No, she is acting with a theatrical troupe. As will I be in a few weeks.’
Interest quickened in her eyes. ‘You’re an actor?’
‘The heir apparent to the crown of John Barrymore, that’s all.’
‘What have you been?’
But the doorbell sounded, breaking into the question, leaving Grofield with mixed emotions. He was glad the trite question had been interrupted, but irritated to have the progression with this delightful girl interrupted. He said, ‘Ignore it.’
‘I can’t. It might be something important.’ She was already on her feet and halfway across the room.
‘Ah, well. Hurry back to me.’
She flashed him a smile over her shoulder and went on out to the foyer. A minute later she was back, looking troubled, and behind her came two men, one of them the Fed who earlier had refused to share a cab with Grofield. He was the one who said, ‘Alan Grofield?’
‘You have the honour,’ Grofield told him.
Crystal said, ‘Is that your first name? Alan? I like that.’
‘Nice of you.’
‘You come with us,’ said the Fed, talking to Grofield.
Something cold touched Grofield in the pit of the stomach. ‘This is a pinch?’
The other Fed said, ‘You’re not under arrest, don’t worry about it. We want to talk to you.’
‘Why don’t we talk here? Such lovely surroundings, a charming hostess
‘
‘Downtown,’ said the first Fed.
‘You,’ Grofield told him, ‘are trying to be difficult. And are succeeding wondrous well. All right, if you insist you insist.’ He got to his feet and said to Crystal, ‘I’ll come back when I can. We’ll continue our discussion.’
‘I’ll like that.’
Grofield smiled at her, a trifle sadly Rex Harrison as the gentle jewel thief, being taken from the hotel suite in Cannes and patted her cheek as he went by. The background music was ironic, sophisticated, subtly jazzy.
Riding down in the elevator between the two Feds, Grofield said, ‘I hope you realize what you loused up there.’ Neither of them answered him.
There was no talk at all on the fifteen-minute ride to the Federal Building in downtown Galveston. They escorted Grofield in, up an elevator, down a corridor, and into an office where a middle-aged white-haired gent who looked like Hopalong Cassidy said, ‘Sit down, Mr. Grofield.’
Grofield sat down. ‘I won’t tell who Mister Big is,’ he announced. ‘My lips are sealed.’
Hopalong Cassidy rewarded him with a thin smile. ‘We know whoMister Big is,’ he said. ‘What we want to know is wherehe is. Where’s Parker?’
Grofield did Willy Best, big eyes and sagging underlip and all. ‘Who? Who dat?’
Hopalong Cassidy shook his head, but was still smiling around the corners of his mouth. ‘Don’t play like that, Mr. Grofield,’ he said. ‘If you won’t talk sense with me, I’ll just have to have you detained for a day or two until you feel more reasonable.’
Grofield shook his head. ‘No, you won’t. You detain me and everybody else runs out and the whole deal is off. You know that as well as I do.’
‘They’d leave you?’ Hopalong acted as though he thought he could get mileage out of that idea.
Grofield nipped it in the bud. ‘They’d leave me,’ he said, ‘almost as fast as I’d leave them.’
Hopalong leaned back in his chair and tapped some fingers on his desk. ‘We want to know what’s going on,’ he said. ‘We want to know where Parker is, and we want to know when you people are going out to that island.’
‘We go out there every night.’
