On, Off

Desdemona walked into a room that took her breath away. Its walls and ceiling were dull Chinese red, a carpet the same color covered the floor, and much thought had gone into the lighting. Fluorescent strips concealed by a pelmet ran along the perimeter, illuminating some of the loveliest Oriental art she had ever seen: a three-leafed screen of tigers against gilt squares, a wonderfully droll and tender ink painting of a fat old man asleep with his head pillowed on a tiger, a group of tigers young and old, a mommy tiger serving a homily to a baby tiger, and, to break up so many tigers, a few panels of ethereal mountains painted on white stone inside intricately carved black frames. Four upholstered Chinese red tub chairs stood around a Lalique table of frosted ostrich plumes beneath a round piece of inch-thick transparent glass; above it blazed a small, matching Lalique chandelier. Two places had been set on that flawless table, of thin plain crystal and thin plain china. Four Chinese red easy chairs were arranged in a group around a squat, large ceramic temple dog with a sheet of glass on its head. Around the walls a few cabinets in black lacquer broke up so much redness. Interesting, that this shade of red was not discordant or irritating. It was just intensely sumptuous.

“Ye gods!” she exclaimed feebly. “The next thing you’ll be telling me you write highly intellectual poetry and cherish a thousand secret sorrows.”

That made him laugh as he carried the bag into a kitchen as white as the living room was dull red, immaculately clean, quite intimidatingly tidy. This man was a perfectionist.

“Far from it,” he said as he emptied the steaming food into lidded bowls. “I’m just a Wop cop from Holloman with a yen for beautiful surroundings when I come home. White wine, or red?”

“Beer, if you have it. I like beer with Chinese.

“This place is not at all what I expected,” she said, taking two of the bowls while he stacked the rest up his arms like a waiter.

He drew her chair out, seated her, seated himself.

“Eat,” he said. “I got a bit of everything on the menu.”

Since both of them were hungry, they polished off the large amount of food, each deftly wielding chopsticks.

I am a snob, she thought as she ate, but we English do tend to be snobs unless we come from Coronation Street. Why do we forget that the Italians ruled the world before ever we did, and for longer, and with greater success? They gave birth to the Renaissance, they have adorned the world with art, literature, and the arch. And this Wop cop from Holloman has the air of a Roman emperor, so why should he not have ascetic feelings?

“Green tea, black tea, or coffee?” he asked in the kitchen as he stacked the dishwasher.

“Another beer, please.”

“What did you expect, Desdemona?” he asked from the depths of his easy chair, his cup of green tea on the temple dog table.

“If there had been a Mrs. Delmonico – after all, there might have been – good Italian leather and a conservative color scheme. If a policeman’s bachelor quarters – perhaps bits and pieces from Goodwill. Are you married? I ask only out of politeness.”

“Was, a long time ago. I have a daughter nearly fifteen.”

“With American alimony what it is, I’m surprised you can buy Lalique and chinoiserie.”

“No alimony,” he said with a grin. “My ex left me to marry a guy who could buy and sell Chubb. She and my girl live in an L.A. mansion that looks like Hampton Court palace.”

“You’ve traveled.”

“From time to time, even for the job. I get the crap cases, and Chubb being an international community, a few cases spread to Europe, the Middle East, Asia. I saw the table and chandelier in a store window in Paris and hocked my suspenders to buy them. The Chinese stuff I bought in Hong Kong and Macau while I was in Japan just after the War. Occupational forces. The Chinese were so poor that I got things for a song.”

“But you weren’t above profiting from their poverty.”

“You can’t eat painted tigers, lady. Both sides got what they wanted.” It wasn’t said sharply, though it held a measure of reproof. “The first cold winter, they’d have been burned. I hate to think how much was burned during the years when the Japs treated the Chinese like sheep for the slaughter. As it is, what I have, I care for and appreciate. It’s not worth a hill of beans compared to what the British took out of Greece and the French out of Italy,” he added a little maliciously.

“Touche.” She put her beer down. “All right, time to get down to brass tacks, Lieutenant. What do you think you can winkle out of me in return for feeding me?”

“Probably nothing, but who knows? I won’t start by asking you anything I can’t find out for myself, though if you come across, it will save getting a few Hug backs up. Yours is permanently up, probably over your tallness, so I know where I stand with you – a good four inches shorter.”

“I am proud of my height,” she said, tight-lipped.

“So you should be. There’s lots of guys fancy climbing up Mount Everest.”

She burst out laughing. “That’s exactly what I said to Miss Tamara Vilich today!” Sobering, she looked at him levelly. “But you’re not such a one, are you?”

“Nope. I get my exercise working out in the police gym.”

“Ask your questions, then.”

“What’s the Hug’s annual budget?”

“Three million dollars. A million in salaries and wages, a million in running costs and supplies, three-quarters of a million to Chubb University, and a quarter of a million as reserve.”

He whistled. “Jesus! How the hell can the Parsons fund it?”

“From a trust with a capital of a hundred and fifty million. This means that we never get through what the interest fetches. Wilbur Dowling wants the size of the Hug doubled to include a psychiatric division devoted to organic psychoses. Though this doesn’t fall within the Hug’s parameters, those parameters could be altered fairly legitimately to gratify his wishes.”

“Why the hell did William Parson set aside so much?”

“I think because he was a business skeptic who believed that money would inevitably lose its value as time went on. He was so alone, you see, and toward the end of his life the Hug became his entire reason for being.”

“Would doubling the size of the Hug to fit in with the Dean’s ambitions be a problem in other ways than just money?”

“Definitely. The Parsons dislike Dowling to a man, and M.M. is such a Chubber to his bootstraps that he regards science and medicine as faintly sordid things that by rights should belong to state-funded universities. That he tolerates them is because the federal government pours money into scientific and medical research, and Chubb does very well out of it. The Hug’s isn’t the only percentage Chubb takes.”

“So M.M. and the Parsons are the stumbling blocks. It always goes back to personalities, doesn’t it?” Carmine asked, refilling his teacup from a pot kept warm inside a padded basket.

“They’re human beings, so yes.”

“How much does the Hug spend on major equipment?”

“This year, more than usual. Dr. Schiller is being endowed with an electron microscope that will cost a million.”

“Ah, yes, Dr. Schiller,” he said, stretching out his legs. “I hear that some of the Huggers are making his life so difficult that he tried to resign this afternoon.”

“How do you know that?” she demanded, sitting up straight.

“A little bird.”

Down went the beer glass with a clang; Desdemona scrambled up. “Then feed your little bird, not me!” she snapped.

He didn’t move. “Calm down, Desdemona, and sit down.”

She stood doing her habitual towering act, eyes locked on his, which were, a corner of her mind noted, not dark brown, but more an amber that this room enlivened. The brain behind them knew exactly what she was feeling, and couldn’t be bothered with her compunctions. As was, she admitted, only fitting: all he cared about was finding the Connecticut Monster. Desdemona Dupre was a pawn he could easily afford to lose. She sat down.

“That’s better,” he said, smiling. “What do you think of Dr. Kurt Schiller?”