The man managed to speak here in what I think he imagined to be an ingratiating tone. «I think they got the idea from you, Sarah. When we had that conference, they said you said you could tell a hotel by its lobby.»
«I never said any such thing,» said Sarah, staring the man down. «I would like to know who said I did. Exactly who. Find out for me. Just ask and find out exactly who is willing to swear I said that. Even if I had done so, would that be worth four lobby makeups, with not even a single backup in case the lobby idea is sour?—which it is.»
«But what are we going to do now?»
«You’ll work all night, if you have to. If you had had this in last week as you were supposed to—»
«Come on, Sarah, you can’t push these things too much.»
«I’m trying to push them enough. Anyway, these are out. Remind everyone there’s a recession on and we can’t get by without something good—and these things are putrid.»
She tossed the placards to the man facing her and sat there unhappily. I couldn’t see her face, but if ever a beehive hairdo looked downcast from the back, hers was it.
The man got up, gathering the placards together and said, «Well, I’ll call you tomorrow morning. And I think someone’s waiting for you.»
She turned around rapidly, and when she saw who it was, she reddened. I imagine she flushed easily; her skin was quite fair; almost startlingly so against her dark hair and eyes. Flawless, too—at least the parts I could see. It was a pity she couldn’t be stretched out into something taller.
She said, «I’m sorry, Darius. I didn’t know you were there.»
The use of the first name caught me by surprise till I remembered we had placed ourselves on a first-name basis on our previous meeting. Actually, I liked the way she pronounced it.
I said, «It’s all right. It was a pleasure watching you work.»
She said, «I’m sorry again. I must have sounded petulant to you.»
«They looked like lousy ads to me.»
«Weren’t they? It’s not really my job to backstop design, but they do such stupid things when they’re left to themselves. Imagine saying that I said you could judge a hotel from its lobby.»
«You might be able to.»
«Never. Ours is terrible. It’s like Grand Central used to be. There’s even a porno newsstand.»
«Where?»
«Well, almost porno and never mind where. But I’m talking nonsense. I’ve been kept so busy that I’ve forgotten what a miserable time you had since I last saw you. I understand that you went up to the room and found your friend dead. I’ve been thinking you must have been suspecting such a tragedy or you would not have run off so—so—» (for the first time I heard her stumble over an English word) «—distrafft.»
«Distraught,» I said.
«Distraught. Did you expect to find him dead?»
«No. Never. Anything but that. Your remarks had just put it into my head that I had promised to run an errand for him and I had forgotten. By the time I got to his room—»
«He was dead,» she said. «I hope there was no connection.»
«I don’t see how that could be,» I said gruffly, but she had put her finger very efficiently on my particularly howling worry. «Did you tell anyone that I had run off like that?»
«Oh, no,» she said. «I thought you might be in trouble and it was not my wish to make that trouble worse. Of course, if I had been asked directly, I couldn’t very well have lied about it.» She smiled, something I hadn’t seen her do before, and she had nice, even teeth—front teeth, anyway. «I come from a land, you see, where you quickly learn not to volunteer information. Still, there are many around us who saw you run off.»
«I know, but you’re the only one who knew exactly what you said to me that made me run off. And talking about Giles, I understand his wife was here in this room and that she wants to see me.»
«Yes, but how did you know that?»
«Ah,» and I smiled, too, something it was a relief to be able to do, «but, you see, I don’t volunteer information either.»
«But I asked you. It is not a matter of volunteering.»
«Does it matter that you do not know?»
«It always matters for a woman not to know.»
«Sexist nonsense!» I said, and rejoiced (and by no means for the first time) at the weapon the liberation movement had handed over to the occasional male chauvinist. (I repeat, I’m a feminist—most of the time.)
«Very well, then,» she said, coming dangerously close to a pout. «Yes, Mrs. Devore did say that she would like to see you. She is a very strange woman. Do you know her well?»
«No.»
«Do you like her?»
«No.»
«She seemed so in charge of herself, even though her husband was lying dead upstairs. Her voice did not tremble. Her hands were quite steady. I’m told she didn’t even wince at the news.»
I said, «She’s a successful career woman who has schooled herself to take things as they come. She’s forged her way through a male society before the liberation movement came to help, and that takes guts.»
«I thought you said you didn’t like her.»
«I don’t. But in some ways I admire her. Where is she?»
«She’s upstairs. Waiting in the room for the Medical Examiner. In 1511.»
I looked at my watch. It was edging past 3:40—not yet twenty-four hours since I had arrived at the convention.
«When the hell will he come?» I muttered.
«There are many—»
«I know; many bodies waiting. But you’d think they’d want to autopsy fresh meat.»
She winced, and I said, «I’m sorry. That was a foul thing to say. It’s just that I’m feeling tired and bitter.»
«I understand.» I made a little quasi-salute gesture and left.
14 EUNICE DEVORE 3:45 P.M.
Back up to 1511. It was not my idea of anything I wanted to do.
I knocked at the door and after a while it opened a bit and the eye of Officer Olsen appeared there. I guess if you’re a cop and are carrying a gun, you don’t have to be as careful about asking who’s there as ordinary people do.
I said, «Hi. Remember me?»
He did.
I said, «If Mrs. Devore’s in there, can I get in to see her? Tell her it’s Darius Just.»
She must have heard me, for I heard Eunice’s husky voice say, «Let him in. I want to see him.»
Olsen opened the door for me and closed it after me. The room had been straightened out. Eunice was sitting in one chair and the policeman took the other. I considered the bed, discarded the idea, and sat down on the low bench-like affair next to the bureau, where a suitcase would ordinarily be put.
Eunice was looking particularly plain, rather more than the forty-two years I knew she was. She was a dozen years older than Giles, if you wanted another factor that made for the mesalliance.
She must have seen the quick glance I cast at the bathroom door just before I sat down and promptly read my mind, though that must have been one of the easier telepathic tasks.
She said, «He’s still in there with a blanket over him. I suppose one of these days the M.E. will be over. It’s silly taking an autopsy in a case like this, but necessary. You go through the routine to avoid trouble. If you leave out an autopsy, there may be legal complications of all sorts and better a thousand useless autopsies than one set of ensuing complications.»
It was almost as though she were anesthetizing herself by talking like the lawyer she was.
I said, «Sorry for the delay, but I was told you were down in Room 622.»
«I was,» she said, «but I didn’t stay.» Her nose was shiny and her hair was bedragged. «If I had been penned in with that niminy-piminy any longer I’d have broken down the door to get out.»