“Do
“I don’t know enough yet to have an opinion. Can I ask who you are, sir?”
“My name’s Aladdin Blue,” Blue said. So much for my uncle Al.
“And what are you doing here?”
“That should be obvious. I’m visiting Miss Hollander.”
I said, “He brought me some candy,” and held out the box. “Want a piece, Lieutenant Sandoz?”
I got ignored. “I’m afraid you’ll have to go now, sir.”
There was no mincing around with Blue; he just shook his head. “I won’t.”
“I’m afraid you’ll have to.”
“If you speak to the hospital authorities, and argue with them long enough, I’m certain they’ll order me to leave,” Blue said. “But before you do, I think you should consider whether you really want to.”
“I’ve considered it,” Sandoz told him. “Get out.”
Blue made a toy steeple of his fingers. “I am a Hollander employee,” he said “As you must know by now, Mr. Hollander is in New York on business. I spoke with him by telephone before coming here, and although he is unable to return, he is deeply concerned about his daughter’s welfare, and—”
“The planes don’t fly out of New York on Sunday? They sure land at O’Hare.”
“Mr. Hollander is involved in negotiations that will affect the future of the corporation profoundly,” Blue said. “Such negotiations are not suspended on Friday afternoon and resumed on Monday morning; but even so, he may drop everything and come. I had hoped, when I left here, to be able to tell him that would not be necessary. Meanwhile I am here
“You pointed out yourself,” Sandoz said, “that I could get one of the doctors here to put you out. What would you do then—sue the hospital because your visiting time was up? Why make it tough for me? I’ve got nothing against you now. Why give me something?”
“I’m trying not to,” Blue said. “In fact, I’m trying to help you. Suppose Miss Hollander’s condition worsens tonight? Not because of anything you said or did—conditions sometimes do. I’ll have to tell Mr. Hollander that I was here and you forced me to leave so that you could cross-examine his daughter. Have you thought about how that might look, how it might sound? How will you defend yourself—by proving that Miss Hollander’s an insane explosives expert?”
(Blue was watching Sandoz’s face when he said that and so was I, because I knew right away that he was trying to see if Sandoz had been listening when I’d said Uncle Herbert might be the one. Maybe it looked to Blue like Sandoz’s nose lit up and his eyes went around, but it sure didn’t to me. I might as well have been watching a wooden Indian.)
“That’s nonsense and you know it,” Blue went on. “You’re far better off with Munroe’s dynamite. Now if you want to fetch a resident or the chief nurse, go ahead. When I’m gone, you can quiz Miss Hollander to your heart’s content. But I’d be careful, if I were you, not to say anything that might offend her. It’s quite possible she might become hysterical. You know how girls her age are.”
How Sandoz Dropped the Bomb on Us
I said, “I don’t care if Mr. Blue stays or goes. I’ll probably have more fun with him not around.”
Naturally that did it—Sandoz figured I was laying for him. He growled, “You can stay,” at Blue and went off to find another chair.
When he came back with one and had gotten himself settled, he gave me this little speech about how there was really nothing serious he wanted to ask me—just routine—and it would all be over in ten minutes. I felt like saying I thought the routine stuff was what they’d sent Ritter, my handsome storm trooper, to get. Only I decided that Blue and I’d already pushed him plenty far enough, so I made my eyes get wide and my face go innocent and nodded a lot while I nibbled another chocolate. Of course I thought he’d start on Pandora’s Box. Wrong.
He put on a little show of flipping through a notepad he took out of his breast pocket. Then he said, “As I understand it, you were a friend of Drexel K. Munroe.”
“You’re nuts.”
“That was the information we received. Are you saying you didn’t know Munroe?”
“Who told you I knew him?”
“I’m afraid I have to keep that confidential. Mr. Munroe had a daughter about your age. Her name’s Tracy.”
I shook my head, which hurt. “I don’t know any Tracies.”
“She goes to your school.”
“Do you know how many kids go to Barton High? There are lots of colleges with smaller enrollments.”
He smiled. I was getting so used to that wooden puss I could tell now when the lips moved. “There must be a lot of them you don’t know.”
“If I haven’t had a class with them and they’re not in the riding club or the rifle club, it’s twenty to one I don’t know them.”
“Or if they’re not the children of your parents’ friends, I suppose. You’d know them, I imagine.”
