'Toby, I asked you and you said you'd leave Jeremy out of your work.'
'I'm sorry,' I said, starting up the stairs. 'I don't think there's any…'
'… and we figured out your puzzle,' she said.
I kept coming up the stairs. I didn't have the heart to tell her that I'd figured it out too, at least most of it.
'Great,' I said as she moved toward the stairway landing.
'If it's not French,' a man's voice shouted from above us, 'I can't sell it. You get me French, I'll get you cash.'
I got to the first floor, not even panting. Natasha reached for me and Alice handed her over. She smelled like innocence and baby powder.
'The initials of each victim,' Alice said. 'Charles Larkin, Al Ramone, Karl Gouda, C.L.A.R.K, G. And in his last note, he says he 'began lame but I'll end able.' ABLE. Clark Gable.'
Natasha was pulling at my ear. She wasn't more than four months old, but she had inherited her father and mother's strength. Alice reached over, removed her hand from my ear, kissed Natasha's palm, and took her back. She immediately began to pat her mother's head again and gurgle.
'Your killer is issuing a warning to Clark Gable, taunting him,' Alice said. 'Maybe wanting him to feel responsible for the deaths of these men for no other reason than to spell the name of a movie star.'
'I don't like crazies,' I said.
'Who does unless they're funny?' she said.
A grinding machine sound began a floor or two above us. We had to raise our voices.
' 'I'll be there e'er the Ides and right those wrongs and claim his prize,'' Alice went on. 'Jeremy thinks he wrote that to let you know that he plans to do something before the fifteenth, the ides. Jeremy had me read Julius Caesar. Caesar is warned about the ides, but he ignores the warning, and then he's murdered on the ides, stabbed by former friends.'
'The king,' I said. 'Gable's called the king.'
'So, it could be that he plans to murder Clark Gable before the fifteenth,' said Alice. ' 'My father wept to be so cut from fortune, fame deserved.' Suggestion, Toby. We think his father didn't get something that could have made him rich and famous, something about Clark Gable. And he plans to get his revenge before the fifteenth. Jeremy thinks your killer's father had something to do with Gone With the Wind. All three victims had something to do with the film.'
All this I knew, but I didn't have the heart to tell Alice. Natasha was solemnly exploring her mother's nostrils. Alice paid no attention.
'We're still puzzled by some of his comments,' Alice said. 'Who am I? Just ask what I am d.o.i.n.g.'
'Spelling,' I said. 'He's Spelling. His name is Spelling.'
'How can anyone be expected to figure that out?' Alice said, nestling her nose into Natasha's stomach. The baby giggled.
'Maybe we're not supposed to figure it out till it's too late,' I said.
'Then why play the game?' Alice asked.
'To show he's smarter than me, smarter than Gable,' I said. 'To make us feel that we should have figured it out, when it's too late.'
Alice gently put Natasha's head against her neck and patted her back softly to calm the giggling baby.
'He's sick, Toby,' Alice said. 'I've got to go change Natasha and give her a nap.'
'He's sick, Alice,' I agreed.
Alice started to walk away and then turned to me, her homely face serious.
'I don't want Jeremy near him,' she said.
'I'll…'
'Listen,' she said, shifting the baby slightly so she could hold her with one hand while she plucked a sheet of paper from the pocket of her dress. Natasha stirred and did a baby sigh and went quiet again. Alice shook open the sheet and read,
'Blake thought he found God hi the wake of a tiger, the burst of sun, the flower, Shakespeare in the wit of words the recognition of the power of well-put passion.
Pound pounds his Nazi chains against the steel drum of fear while I take issue, take pains to find the postured dignity that holds my hand through doubt and lets me reach back with earthy strength to those I love and say, 'Take my hand for I will hold you fast through time to come and which has past.
We are not first but we'll not be last.''
'Well?' Alice challenged, folding the sheet with one hand and dropping it back in her pocket.
'Impressive,' I said.
'If Jeremy gets hurt, Toby, I'll crush your head with my bare hands. I will.'
'I know, Alice.'
There was nothing more to say. She and the still-giggling baby vanished into the shadows, and I went back to the stairway and made my way up to the office of Sheldon Minck and Toby Peters.
There were voices beyond the waiting room: Shelly's, though it seemed unnatural somehow. The other voice was a woman's. I opened the door and found Shelly standing next to a girl who stood a good six niches taller than him. She was slender, dark, with a short Louise Brooks haircut and wearing a green dress with fluffy sleeves. She also wore a smile and too much makeup.
Shelly was showing her drawings and trying to keep his glasses from slipping off as he pointed to details with the dead end of his cigar.
'… in your office,' he said, pointing back at my office.
She saw me first. Then Shelly's eyes came up, filled with magnified guilt behind the thick lenses. The girl smiled. She was cute, maybe a little empty, but cute.
'Oh, Toby,' Shelly said, quickly dropping his drawings on the dental chair. 'This is Mrs. Gonsenelli, Violet.'
Violet Gonsenelli held out her hand. I stepped forward to take it. It was slender, warm, and definitely did not belong, along with that face and body, in the less-than-spotless offices of Minck and Peters.
'Pleasure,' she said.
'Mrs. Gonsenelli applied for the receptionist job,' Shelly explained. 'I told her the ad was old, but she has some great ideas and she needs the job.'
'Husband's in Europe,' she explained.'Fighting the Nazis.'
'Best reason to be there,' I said.
'Business is growing, Toby,' Shelly said nervously. 'Wouldn't be bad to have someone keep track of things, straighten up.'
'You were talking about my office,' I said.
'Your…' Shelly began, looking at my office door as if he had never seen it before. 'Well, it was just a possibility, you know. Violet would need an office and…'
Violet looked confused.
'Mildred,' I said. 'Mildred gets one look at Violet and she's on the way to Reno.'
'This is business,' Shelly said with indignation. 'Mildred would just have to understand.'
'Mildred?' Violet asked.
'Mrs. Minck,' I explained.
Violet nodded in understanding. I had the feeling this was not the first job interview foiled by a Mildred Minck.
'Maybe I'd better go,' Violet said.
'Wait,' said Shelly. 'Toby?'
'Your marriage, Dr. Minck,' I said. 'We can clear out the waiting room for Violet, put in a small desk. Patients and clients can wait in the hall. You put two or three chairs out there and maybe, who knows, if you're lucky, they won't get stolen. You'd better check with Jeremy and Alice to see if they'll let you do it.'
Shelly was beaming.
'I don't…' Violet began.
'You don't have to,' Shelly said. 'You just make appointments, answer the phone, straighten up, learn about
