like the cops do. Or maybe seducer, seducee.'
'If we do that, knowing Stan's proclivities, I would have to be the seducer. And the thought of his hand on my knee…'
'You might have to go a lot further than that…'
'Arrow!'
'Okay, scratch that idea. We'll come up with something.' She whipped her cell phone out of her bag and started pressing buttons.
'And you're calling who?'
'The airline, to see if we can catch the six o'clock commuter flight to San Francisco.'
'Don't you have to tell my father-Richard?
'I will; I'll call him from San Francisco.'
'I wonder if you can leave frequent-flyer miles to your heirs.'
Of course there wasn't a parking place within several football fields' lengths of James' house so I jammed our rental car up behind several other cars in the driveway. If someone needed to get out they would know where to find me. It was a little past 8:30. We had driven directly here from the San Francisco airport.
Arrow wore about the brightest and tightest red dress I had ever seen. As I helped her out of the car it rode up almost to her waist. One of the benefits of being a gentleman.
My surge of hormones made me realize that I had fallen well behind my quota in complimenting her. I said, 'You look fabulous in that dress, especially since you had about five minutes to both pack and get dressed.'
'Ten, actually, since I had to wait for you to pick me up. But, thank you, sir. You look pretty sharp, yourself.'
I wore a sport coat and tie.
'You'll notice that tonight I'm actually wearing underwear,' she continued. 'If we have to take off our outer clothes as part of our investigation I have a second line of defense.'
Had she caught me looking? 'I trust we won't have to go that far.'
'You never know.'
She was pretty upbeat, considering the gravity of the situation.
Another car pulled up behind ours. As we walked up the steps, with Arrow's arm in mine so that she wouldn't stumble in her high heels, a couple got out of the car, not much older than we were. They followed us up the steps and caught us as we reached the landing by the front door.
'Good,' the woman said. 'You can help us with the puzzle. George always screws it up and then I have to get out a pencil and paper and solve it. Men are supposed to do those things.'
'I just pick a number,' I said. I rang the doorbell. 'I'm Karl and this is Arrow.'
'George and Martha,' the man said.
We shook hands all around.
A voice unknown to me said, 'Yes? Oh, hello, Mr. and Mrs. Goodwin. Are those your friends?'
'Uh, I'm Karl Patterson and this is Arrow Andrews,' I said, somewhat embarrassed at not being recognized.
Silence from the speaker.
'I'm sure we're in the database,' I said, lamely, trying to recover with George and Martha. 'At least they know I like iced tea.'
'Don't worry about it,' George said, laughing. He had a grating laugh and looked like an entrepreneurial type, with short hair and rimless glasses. 'Sometimes they don't recognize us, either. It just depends on who's manning the camera.'
'Arrow-what a great name,' Martha said. 'And I love your dress.'
'Thanks,' Arrow said. 'It's worked so far.'
Martha's own dress hadn't exactly come from a thrift shop. She was fashionably thin and her hair was suspiciously blonder than that of 999 out of every 1,000 people in the world.
The voice from the speaker said, 'Here is the puzzle for tonight. Let's say that A and B both collect spiders. A says, 'B, I'll buy 18 of your spiders. Then I'll have twice as many as you do.' B says, 'Au contraire, I'll buy 18 spiders from you. Then we'll have the same number.' How many total spiders are there?'
'Jesus!' George said. 'What we have to go through to come here.'
'Do I have to get out the pencil and paper?' Martha asked. She opened the clasp of her purse.
'Karl will figure it out,' Arrow said. 'He's brilliant at this sort of thing.'
As she said this she took hold of my arm, possessively, as if we were married or at least sweethearts, and pulled it against her body. This gave me an additional hormonal boost, but not the kind conducive to solving math puzzles.
'Thanks for putting me on the spot,' I said, trying to clear my head. Okay, let's see. If they swap 18 spiders and then have the same number, one has 36 more spiders than the other to begin with. They swap the other way and one has 36 plus 36 or 72 more spiders than the other. That's twice as many as the other so the other must have 72. Seventy-two times two is 144. Subtract 18 from 144 and you get 126. Add 18 to 72 and you get 90. Ninety is 36 less than 126, so that checks out. The answer is 126 plus 90 or 216. Right?'
'If you say so,' George said.
'My hero!' Martha said, dramatically.
Maybe she was an actress. I gave Arrow some time to pick apart my logic, but she couldn't do it so I announced our answer to the faceless voice within. A click told me I was correct and I opened the door.
We made our way down the stairs to the casino, to the mellow tones of Tony Bennett singing, 'I Left My Heart in San Francisco.' Appropriate. Wednesdays must be slow nights because there weren't many people here. I didn't recognize the man standing at the bottom of the stairs to greet us. He looked older than Stan and even had some gray at the temples.
He shook hands with the Goodwins and welcomed us all to the casino. He told Arrow and me his name was Art and that he was the floor manager on duty. I asked him if Stan was working.
'Not tonight,' Art replied. 'He's scheduled to work tomorrow night.'
'Is he in the house, do you know?' I asked.
Art shook his head. 'I believe he's out for the evening. However, I'll ring his number and check for you.'
He headed for the room under the stairs. 'Is James in?' I called after him.
He shook his head again and said, 'He's on a business trip.'
'I guess I was too impetuous,' Arrow said, frowning. 'It looks like we've wasted the evening.'
'Have a drink with us,' George said in a hearty voice.
'What I would really like is something to eat,' I said. I had ordered a burger to go from the Norms when we had decided to fly here, but since then all I had eaten was some crunchy stuff served in tiny packages on the airplane with a list of ingredients that covered the package.
Fortunately, there was some food left at the buffet table. Arrow and I filled two plates and sat at a table with Martha and George, who had ordered drinks. Art came over and confirmed that Stan was not at home.
'So, have you been coming here long?' George asked us.
'This is my fourth time and Arrow's second,' I said. 'What about you?'
'We've been coming here off and on for six months,' George said.
'And lost our shirts in the process,' Martha said.
I detected real bitterness in her voice and I wanted to ask for details, but all I said was, 'Oh?'
'We'll probably lose our company,' Martha added.
George said, 'Martha…'
'We might as well tell them. It'll be common knowledge soon. Maybe we can save them from having the same experience. Have you heard of a company called everything. com?'
I hadn't but Arrow said, 'Yes. I read in a trade journal-a number of months ago, I think it was-that you were going to do an IPO.'
'Yes, we were all set to have a stock offering,' George said. 'Then the market turned sour, and now it's too
