“Things get a little dull on the Continent?”
I shrugged, trying to remember the last twenty-some years. “What’s excitement one time gets to be pretty routine the next. Maybe I’m like the salmon coming back to spawn where it was born.”
“And die,” Mona added. “They always die after they spawn. Is that why you came back, Dog?”
“Dying isn’t my bag, lady. At least not yet.”
“Ah, an item. You’ve come home to spawn. And who will be your spawnee?”
Walt laughed and patted her shoulder. “Mona, my girl, must you always look at the sexual side of things?”
“It’s the interesting-item side, dear boy. My readers eat it up. We have an extremely provocative and eligible bachelor in our midst, so naturally I’m curious.” She looked at me, still smiling. “You haven’t answered my question, Mr. Kelly.”
“I haven’t given it any thought, either.”
“No lonely heart waiting for your return?”
“Can’t remember any. Most people were glad to see me go.”
Walt waved a miniskirted waitress over with the drink tray, and when we picked up our glasses said, “Don’t let all that Barrin Industries background fool you, Mona. Dog here was born a hundred years too late. There aren’t many places for a real live charger anymore. He was glad to be booted out.”
“And who is getting the boot?” a quiet voice asked.
We all turned and nodded at the weathered face of the heavy-set man behind us. “Mona, Walt ...” he said.
“Dick Lagen, Dog Kelly. I don’t think you’ve met.”
I held out my hand and he took it politely for a second. “I’m a regular reader of yours, Mr. Lagen.”
“Ah, at last someone interested in news with an international flavor.”
“That’s more than he said of my literary gems,” Mona told him.
Lagen smiled and ran a forefinger across his hairline moustache. “Mona, dear, we are hardly competitors. It is he with a bent for finance that is interested in the news I report. Is that not true, Mr. Kelly?”
There was an odd note to his tone and his eyes were watching me carefully. “Pursuit of the buck is a necessary evil. I’m always glad to break even,” I said.
“I understand you’ve come back to claim an inheritance.”
I let out a laugh. “Ten big G’s. How did you know about that?”
Dick Lagen tasted his drink, made a satisfied pat at his mouth and said, “My earliest researches were made during the height of the Barrin regime. You’d be surprised how much I know about your family fortunes.”
“Well, as long as I get my ten grand, I’m happy. I never was much of a family man.”
“So I understand. However, ten thousand dollars isn’t much of a nest egg these days. Plan to invest it?”
“Hell, no,” I told him. “I plan to blow it. Money is no good unless you convert it into something useful or pleasurable, anyway.”
“That’s a rich man’s attitude, Mr. Kelly.” That odd note was back in his voice again.
“You’d be surprised how rich a guy with ten grand can be.” I grinned at him and he smiled back.
“By the way, Mr. Kelly. Your name is Dogeron ... D-O-G-E-R-O-N,” he spelled it, “isn’t it?”
“Yeah, why?”
“Unusual.”
“Old-fashioned. Not many of us left.”
“True. I’ve heard it mentioned several times however. Istanbul, Paris ... you have been there, haven’t you?”
“Sure,” I agreed.
“Could it possibly be that it was the same Dogeron?”
Mona gave us both a quick, sharp glance. “Now see here, Dick, if you have something about my friend, don’t go wasting it in your portentous columns ...”
I stopped her with a laugh. “If Mr. Lagen ran across me in those places you could use the items, Mona. I’m a grade-A student of those belly dances and cancan joints. You hit those places, Mr. Lagen, and it’s a real good chance my name came up. I have a reputation of sorts too. You like the fleshpots?”
His hand touched the moustache again to cover up the flesh on his face. Mona laughed and pulled at his sleeve. “Why, Dick, you old roue, you. And here I thought you were always the proper one. Dog, dear, you’re a darling. At last I have something to hold over his head.”
Lagen let out his suppressed laugh and made a faint grimace of embarrassment. “You have caught me red- handed, Mr Kelly. Now my secret is out. I’m a rather shy voyeur. My opportunities to indulge myself are rare and discreet.”
“Don’t worry,” I told him, “your secret’s safe. I’ve already threatened Mona with exposure on one account. I’ll add this in.”
“Remarkable guest you have here, Walt,” Lagen said. “Not at all continental. Good to see you, Mr. Kelly.”
When he left, Walt said, “I hope you didn’t pinch a nerve, buddy.”
Mona tossed her hair and chuckled. “Don’t be silly. He was pleased as punch. And here we all thought he was stuffy. Dog ... what else do you do? You seem to have an odd insight into people.”
“Comes with age, lady. Besides, aren’t all men supposed to be alike?”
“If they were, you wouldn’t be with one of
“Quit kidding, Mona,” I said. “Experience more than makes up for it.”
“Get him out of here before I attack him, Walt.”
When she walked off squealing at the two current TV stars, Walt said, “Some woman.”
“Yeah.”
“Just don’t let her fool you. She’d blow the whistle on her own grandmother if there was any gossip in it. No social conscience. Same thing with Lagen. He considers himself the great crusader these days. Some senator tagged him the fiscal watchdog of unscrupulous industry and he’s trying to live up to the name.”
“What’s he doing at a bash like this?” I looked around the room. “They’re hardly his type of people.”
“As you so ruthlessly uncovered, Dick’s a girl watcher. He still gets a kick out of the show business crowd. You meet everyone?”
“Pretty much.”
“You got all the guys jumpy. They have their territory all staked out and now they’re waiting to see which one is going to get his claim snaked out from under his nose.”
“Where’s Lee?”
“Out at the bar lining up a couple of in-town celebrities to do guest shots on TV commercials. What’s he so rattled about?”
“Beats me.”
“He acted like he was afraid to leave you alone. I thought you were the big brother type in the old days.”
I grinned at him. “Lee worries too much. He ought to get married.”
“Look who’s talking,” Walt said. “Incidentally, who
“Oh?”
Walt inclined his head to the comer of the room where the blonde I had met on the way in was perched on the arm of a chair, talking to the pumpkin of a man who was one of the bigger paperback book publishers. “That one. Little iron pants. A sexual Molotov cocktail and nobody can get a match to her fuse.”
“Sounds interesting.”
“Tiring is the word. Even the experts gave up on her. One was a psychiatrist and even he couldn’t reach a conclusion. Right now she has Raul flipping his lid. Until he tangled with her he thought he was the epitome in conquering maleness.”
