"While snooping in closets, hunting for skeletons," Qwilleran retorted archly.
Riker said, "If we were to put together a program, what
would we do for visuals?"
"That's the problem," Qwilleran admitted. "There are no pictures."
The publisher turned off the tape recorder. "Okay, we've heard six or eight good ideas. Kick 'em around, and we'll meet again in a couple of days... Back to work!"
As the staff shuffled out of the office, Hixie grabbed Qwilleran's arm and said in a low voice, "I've got a brilliant idea for dramatizing your disaster, Qwill. C'est vrai!"
He winced inwardly, recalling other brilliant ideas of Hixie's that had bombed: the Tipsy Look-Alike Contest that ended in a riot... the cooking demonstration that set fire to her hair... the line of Frozen Foods for Fussy Felines, for which she expected Koko to make TV commercials... not to mention her aborted elopement to France. Gallantly he said, however, "Want to have lunch at Lois's and tell me about it?"
"Okay," she said. "I'll buy. I can put it on my expense account."
-2-
THE ATMOSPHERE AT Lois's Luncheonette was bleak, and the menu was ordinary, but it was the only restaurant in downtown Pickax, and the old, friendly, decrepit ambiance made the locals feel at home. A dog-eared card in the window announced the day's special. Tuesday was always hot turkey sandwich with mashed potatoes and gravy, but it was real turkey sliced from the bird; the bread was baked in Lois's kitchen by a white-haired woman who started at five A.M. every day; and the mashed potatoes had the flavor of real potatoes grown in the mineral-rich soil of Moose County.
Qwilleran and Hixie ordered the special, and she said, "I hear that you're not living in your barn this winter." He had recently converted a hundred-year-old apple barn into a spectacular residence.
"There's too much snow to plow," he explained, "so I'm renting the Gage mansion on Goodwinter Boulevard, where the city does the plowing." He neglected to mention that Polly Duncan, the chief woman in his life, lived in the carriage house at the rear of the Gage property, and he envisioned cozy winter evenings and frequent invitations to dinner and/or breakfast.
"All right. Let's get down to business," Hixie said when the plates arrived, swimming in real turkey gravy. "How did you find out about the killer fire? Or is it a professional secret?"
Qwilleran patted his moustache in self-congratulation. "'To make a long story short, one of Junior's ancestors was an amateur historian. He recorded spring floods, sawmill accidents, log jams, epidemics, and so on, based on the recollections of his elders. In his journals, written in fine script with a nib pen that blotted occasionally, there were firsthand descriptions of the
1869 forest fire in all its gruesome detail. The man was performing a valuable service for posterity, but no one knew his ac- counts existed... So what's your brilliant idea, Hixie?" Qwilleran concluded.
"What would you think of doing a one-man show?"
"Isn't a one-man show based on a three-county forest fire a trifle out of scale?"
"Mais non! Suppose we pretend they had radio stations in the nineteenth century, and the audience sees an announcer broadcasting on-the-spot coverage of the disaster."
Qwilleran gazed at her with new respect. "Not bad! Yes! Not bad! I'd go for that! I'd be glad to organize the material and write the script. If Larry Lanspeak would play the announcer - "
"No! If we're going to sponsor the show, we should keep it in our own organization," she contended.
"Actually, Qwill, I was thinking about you for the part. You have an excellent voice, with exactly the right quality for a radio announcer... Stop frowning! You wouldn't have to learn lines. You'd be reading a script in front of a simulated mike." She was talking fast. "Besides, you're a local celebrity. Everyone loves your column! You'd be a big attraction, sans doute."
He huffed into his moustache. At least she had the good taste to avoid mentioning his local fame as a multi-millionaire, philanthropist, and eligible bachelor.
She went on with contagious enthusiasm. "I could take care of production details. I could do the bookings. I'd even sweep the stage!"
Qwilleran had done some acting in college and enjoyed working before an audience. The temptation was there; the cause was a good one; the story of the great fire cried for attention. He gave her a guarded glance as his objections began to crumble. "How long a program should it be?"
"I would say forty-five minutes. That would fit into a school class period or fill a slot following a club luncheon."
After a few seconds' contemplation he said grimly, "I may regret this, but I'll do it."
"Merveilleux!" Hixie cried.
Neither of them remembered eating their lunch. They discussed a stage setting, lighting, props, a sound system, and how to pack everything in a carrying case, to fit in the trunk of a car.
Hixie said, "Consider it strictly a road show. My budget will cover expenses, but we'll need a name for the project to go into the computer. How about Suitcase Productions?"
"Sounds as if we manufacture luggage," Qwilleran muttered, but he liked it.
Returning home from that luncheon with a foil-wrapped chunk of turkey scrounged from Lois's kitchen, Qwilleran was greeted by two Siamese who could smell turkey through an oak door two inches thick. They yowled and pranced elegantly on long brown legs, and their blue eyes stared hypnotically at the foil package until its contents landed on their plate under the kitchen table.
With bemused admiration Qwilleran watched them devour their treat. Koko, whose legal title was Kao K'o Kung, had the dignity of his thirteenth-century namesake, plus a degree of intelligence and perception that was sometimes unnerving to a human with only five senses and a journalism degree. Yum Yum, the dainty one, had a different set of talents and qualities. She was a lovable bundle of female wiles, which she employed shamelessly to get her own way. When all else failed, she had only to reach up and touch Qwilleran's moustache with her paw, and he capitulated.
When the Siamese had finished their snack and had washed their whiskers and ears, he told them, "I have a lot of work to do in the next couple of weeks, my friends, and I'll have to shut you out of the library. Don't think it's anything personal." He always addressed them as if they understood human speech, and more and more it appeared to be a fact. In the days that followed, they sensed his preoccupation, leaving him alone, taking long naps, grooming each other interminably, and watching the autumn leaves flutter to the ground. The grand old oaks and maples of Goodwinter Boulevard were covering the ground with a tawny blanket. Only when Qwilleran was an hour late with their dinner did the cats interrupt, standing outside the library, rattling the door handle and scolding - Koko with an authoritative baritone "Yow!" and Yum Yum with her impatient "N-n-now!"
Qwilleran could write a thousand words for his newspaper column with one hand tied behind his back, but writing a script for a docu-drama was a new challenge. To relieve the radio announcer's forty-five-minute monologue, he introduced other voices on tape: eye witnesses being interviewed by telephone. He altered his voice to approximate the bureaucratese of a government weather observer, the brogue of an Irish innkeeper, and the twang of an old farmer. With their replies sandwiched between the announcer's questions, Qwilleran was actually interviewing himself.
Once the script was completed, there were nightly rehearsals in the ballroom of the Gage mansion, with Hixie cueing the taped voices into the live announcing. It required split-second timing to sound authentic. Meanwhile, Polly Duncan returned home each evening to her apartment in the carriage house at the rear of the property and saw Hixie's car parked in the side drive. It was a trying time for Polly. As library administrator she was a woman of admirable intelligence and self-control, but - where Qwilleran was concerned - she was inclined to be jealous of women younger and thinner than she.