woman?”
We both turned to face, Bass, who looked bewildered. The conversation had passed him by.
“Woman,” I said. “You know what that is? Mrs. Olson, not the one you killed, but the other one.”
“No,” said Bass, but it sounded less like the answer to a question than an attempt to ward off the one weapon with which he couldn’t cope, words.
“Mr. Peters,” Lyle returned to me. “This is getting us nowhere. Certain things have to be done if political viability is to be maintained, if this country is, literally, going to be saved. Your petty investigations of an inconsequential murder and a less consequential missing dog might well jeopardize the fragile but vital web we are constructing. It is, indeed, like the first, strong strand of the spider. It is the strand on which the entire structure is based, a structure that will grow and encompass our enemies, but that first strand must be protected until it is strengthened. Do you understand?”
“You’re no Daniel Webster,” I said. “Or Henry Clay. Spiders and webs. Come on, Lyle. People are getting killed out there. China’s going to fall. The RAF is getting shot down over Germany and you’re back in the nineteenth century.”
“Bass,” Lyle cried, and before I could move from the chair, Bass had his arms around me and had lifted me up. I lost my wind and gasped for air, but my voice came out in a little puff.
“Wait,” I tried to say, but Lyle had opened the window behind him and nodded to Bass, who carried me easily around the desk.
“Wait,” I tried again, but Bass didn’t wait. He stuck my head and shoulders out the window, eight floors above Broadway. Traffic was heavy below me. I spotted my own car in the parking lot and even spotted the parking lot attendant from Lubbock.
“Since there is no reasoning with you, Mr. Peters,” Lyle said within the room, “then you will simply have an accident or commit suicide.”
“Others,” I gasped as I felt Bass’s arms loosen and tried not to imagine myself bouncing off the building.
“Others?” said Lyle. “Others what? What others?”
Bass’s grip had loosened enough for me to cough out the words, “Butler. Bass knows him.”
“I beat him,” Bass said, proudly shaking me.
“One out of three,” I said
“Pull him in,” Lyle’s voice called out, and in I came. Bass threw me into the corner of the room, where I bounced off the wall and sat catching my breath.
“I think you’re lying about your friends waiting for you,” said Lyle, closing the window and advancing toward me with Bass right behind.
“Send Kong down to look,” I said as I got up.
Bass looked puzzled and then something clicked.
“He called me a monkey,” he said, pushing past Lyle and reaching down for me.
“Bass,” Lyle shouted, stopping the hands inches from my throat. I could smell Bass’s breath. It should have smelled of garlic, but it was more like mint, which was even more unpleasant than garlic would have been.
“I haven’t time for games like this, Peters,” Lyle shouted. “Let us call this little visit a warning, a friendly warning. If you persist, the warning will have been made. Now get your silly hat and take your silly ideas out of here. Out of here.”
I picked up my hat, and using the wall, got up with Bass glaring at me.
“Monks, monks, monks,” I said, limping to the door and brushing off my hat.
“What? What did you say?” Lyle croaked.
“Your parrot, that’s what he said the last time I saw him. He said he was Henry the Eighth and then the bit about the monks.”
“Those were Henry the Eighth’s last words,” Lyle said.
“Those were the parrot’s last words too before that second Mrs. Olson you know nothing about blew his head off.” My hand was on the door and I looked back at Lyle. His upper lip was trembling.
“Henry is dead?” he said.
“Unless a parrot can live without a head.” I sighed. “Just thought I’d give you a little good news to start the day off right.”
Before he could recover and consider having Bass remove my head, I went out the door, hobbled through the outer office, went into the hall, and headed for the stairs, the location of which I had noted before I had entered the office.
I wasn’t sure what I had discovered beyond the fact that Bass had killed Mrs. Olson, but that was a start and a few things were fitting into place.
Jeremy was working on the mirror in the Farraday elevator when I arrived. He sprayed, scrubbed, looked at his own image. Since my ribs were bruised, I rode up with him.
“I should replace this mirror,” he said, “but I like to maintain the original. Replacement is necessary in all things but there comes a point at which so much has been replaced that what you have is but the replica of what once stood. When that process begins, we are too often unaware of the transition. However, my fear, Toby, is that when singular replacements become necessary, I will lose my interest in maintaining the building.”
“That will never happen,” I assured him as we groaned up past the first floor, which reminded me. “How are Alice and Jane getting along?”
“Remarkably,” he said, working away at the mirror “Miss Poslik is very much interested in our children’s book and has already begun illustrations. Of course, we could offer her no money at this point, perhaps at no point, but there is a communal feeling about this project.… What is wrong with you, Toby?” he asked, suddenly looking at me in his mirror as we squeaked past the second floor.
“I ran into your old friend Bass,” I said, gently touching my rib cage to reassure myself again that nothing was broken. “He sends you his best.”
“I doubt that,” he said, turning to examine me “You are fortunate that he simply toyed with you.”
“He dangled me out of an eighth-floor window,” I said as we approached the third-floor landing The elevator came to a stop and Jeremy, tiny bucket in huge hand, stepped out after sliding open the metal door. His lips were tight in anger.
“He should have been dealt with long ago, before he had the opportunity to seriously hurt anyone,” he said.
“He killed a woman last week,” I said, as the elevator door closed.
“And he is on the streets?” asked Jeremy, looking up at the slowly rising cage.
“No proof,” I said, sagging back against the mesh.
“Justice does not always require evidence of the senses,” his voice came up. “It can even go beyond intuition.”
Our voices were echoing down the halls now, vibrating off metal and marble and over the whine of machines and distant humming voices.
“I thought you were coming to the idea that there was no good and evil,” I shouted. “What about your poem in the park?”
“I have no obligation to be consistent,” he shouted back. “My thoughts and feelings are one. When enlightenment comes, it will come not because I will it but because I am ready for it.”
“Whatever you say, Jeremy,” I said, as the elevator came to a stop on four. I said it quietly to myself. It was hard to think about enlightenment with a ringing skull and bruised ribs.
When I reached the outer door, I knew that things had changed, that I would enter a cleaner but even less savory realm because it would be a false one. The still moist sign on the pebbled glass read SHELDON MINCK, D.D.S. There was no reference, even in small letters, to the existence of Toby Peters, Private Investigator. Inside the door, the waiting room had been scrubbed and a new, metal-legged trio of chairs sat waiting emptily. The small table was clean, the ashtray scrubbed and empty, and two editions of the dental journal, both recent, rested waiting for an eager patient to explore their visual wonders. The ancient poster of gum disorders was gone. In its place was a framed, glass-covered sign urging waiting victims to buy war bonds and stamps.
Beyond the next door, the wonders continued. The sink was still clean, the instruments lined up neatly on a white towel, and Shelly was wearing a freshly scrubbed white jacket buttoned to the neck. He was sitting in the dental chair puffing on the remains of a cigar when I came in. Before he peered up from his magazine through his
