"Hold it." Sammy tapped him on the shoulder. "There's the car." He pointed out a driveway a little farther down the block. "You can let me out here." He paid the driver and added a large tip. "See? All's well that ends well," he told him.
"It's just not the same," the driver insisted. "It's just not the same," he repeated sadly, muttering to himself as he drove away.
Staying close to the hedges, in the shadows, Sammy Spayed made his way to the driveway where his quarry's car was parked. Once there, he darted to the side of the house. Here he made his way from window to window, skipping a little to avoid trampling the blossoms in the flowerbed underfoot. Finally he paused outside one lighted window at the rear of the house and raised his head carefully until his nose rested on the outside of the sill and he could see inside.
He found himself looking into a kitchen. A petite, attractive young woman in a housecoat was seated at a table facing him. Opposite her sat a man with his back to Sammy. Trained to observe and memorize details, Sammy recognized the man he'd been following from the pronounced way his ears stuck out from the sides of his head. The window was half-opened from the bottom and Sammy could hear their conversation clearly.
"In the hospital?" the man was saying. "What's he doing in the hospital?"
"He must have had an accident," the young woman replied. "He wasn't specific. He just said he couldn't make it to dinner."
"Sounds like an excuse to me. Just like Arch. No consideration for anybody else. Well, the hell with him. I've got my own worries."
"What worries?"
"I don't want to worry you, my dear, but I'm being followed."
"What do you mean being followed? Who's following you?"
"I'm not sure. Some member of the Italo-Oriental-Zionist conspiracy, I imagine. I've been too outspoken in my opposition. They're probably after me. But as long as I have breath left in my body, they'll never silence me. I'll tell the world what those Jew-Jap wops are up to! I'll-'"
"Now, just a minute," she said wearily. "Now you're going too far. You're getting paranoid. Being bigoted is one thing, but when you start seeing people following you, that's really sick. You're getting a real persecution complex!"
"I tell you I was followed! By a little fat man. Looked like a bohunk. You know, round face and thick glasses and an evil nose like out of one of those old Orson Welles spy movies. Yep, definitely Balkan! Not Jewish, but the kind the Jews love to use to do their dirty work. All those bohunks are born killers!"
"What do you mean 'an evil nose'? How can a nose be evil?"
"Genetics!" His voice was firm and triumphant. "That's the whole secret. Haven't you ever noticed how Orientals have slanty eyes? And kikes talk with two hands while wops talk with only one! What about that?"
"What about it?"
"Genetics, that's what. All bohunks are born assassins. And their noses give them away. I tell you this fat little man who was following me is out to kill me!"
"You're flipping!"
"You think so? I'll bet he's watching this house at this very moment. Lousy tool of the Asiatic Mafia yids! Maybe he can even hear what we're saying! Well, I'll give him something to listen to!" He raised his head and shouted. "Lester Maddox for Governor! George Wallace for President! Rockwell for-"
"God's sake!" she hushed him. "Do you want to wake up the whole neighborhood? The window's open!" She hurried over to close it. "You're flipping, I tell you," she informed him over her shoulder. "Men following you! Watching the house! Evil noses-" She turned to lower the window.
Her eyes fell and looked straight at Sammy Spayed's nose. It looked back at her-evilly. The scene stayed frozen that way for a long moment, and then-
She screamed!
Sammy Spayed bolted. From the back he looked like a barrel bouncing over the sod. When he reached the street, he kept on running. He didn't stop until he was safe at home, secure in the bosom of his large family. It took him a while to get over the trauma of the incident.
By the next day, however, he'd calmed down and was back on the job. That meant following up on the leads he'd already gathered. He spent two days doing that with such success that finally he was ready to call his client again. ^
"Good news, Mrs. Rutherford," he announced to Llona when he had her on the phone. "I think I've located your man. He's at home recuperating from some kind of accident, and I have his address right here."
"Archer? You've found Archer?"
"Archer D. Phelps, cousin of Mortimer Valentine who was married on the third day of-"
"Did you say cousin of Mortimer Valentine?" The beginnings of anguished disappointment were in Llona's voice.
"That's right. Mortimer Valentine, who married-"
"Is his wife's name Olivia?"
"Yes. The very same. Now this Archer D. Phelps resides at-"
"Forget it," Llona said dully. "He's not the man."
"He's not the man?" It was Sammy Spayed's turn to be stunned. "But how can you be sure?"
"I know Olivia Valentine. She described her husband's cousin to me. He's not the man."
"Perhaps a check on the description-"
"Have you seen him?" Llona asked.
"Well no, but- I think I could manage some pretext to get a look at him."
"At your prices, don't bother. Olivia Valentine told me what he looked like. He's not my Archer."
"But his cousin is the only Mortimer married in Birchville on the date you specified."
"It might not have been in Birchville. The Archer I told you about was somewhat drunk and very confused. He might have come to the wrong town. His cousin
Mortimer might have been married in some other town nearby."
"Well, back to the old drawing board," Sammy Spayed told her philosophically. "You'll be hearing from me."
"I hope so," Llona said. But her tone was despondent. It said her hopes of finding Archer were waning.
They continued to wane for more than another week. They had reached a very low ebb indeed when Sammy Spayed called again and revived them. "I think I've got something," he told Llona. "I've located an Archibald Ogilvie, called Arch, Archie, and sometimes Archer by his friends. He's the right age, and he has a cousin named Mortimer Ogilvie who was married in a town about fifty miles from here named Branchville on the date you specified."
"Wonderful," Llona enthused. "That sure sounds like him. When can I see him?"
"Well, there's a slight hitch about that, Mrs. Rutherford."
"Hitch? What kind of hitch?"
"At the present time, Archibald Ogilvie isn't allowed any visitors."
"'No visitors? What do you mean?"
"For the time being he's receiving maximum security care."
"I don't understand. Where is he?"
"At the Happy Acres Mental Health Institute. Just outside of Branchville."
"You mean he's in an insane asylum?" Llona was upset.
"Not at all. It's really only a sort of sanitarium for the mentally disturbed."
"But what's the matter with him?"
"As far as I've been able to find out, he's suffering from a sort of nervous breakdown brought on by an Oedipal coniict and its inevitable projections." "Huh?"
• "He doesn't get along with his mother and has had trouble with other females."
"Is he locked up?"
"I'm afraid so."
"Is he violent?"
"That's hard to say."
"It can't be my Archer," Llona said positively. "He wasn't nuts. He may have had a tendency to drink too much, but he wouldn't have flipped."
"Are you sure?" Sammy Spayed asked gently. "After all, that was weeks back. Things might have happened to him."
"What kind of things?"
"I guess only he'd know that. And maybe his mother."
"Why his mother?"
"She's the one had him committed."
"But for what reason?" Llona wanted to know.
"I'm not sure. The Institute doesn't give out that kind of information."
"If they did, I wouldn't need you," Llona reminded him. "If I can't see him, as you said, then I want you to find out everything you can about what's wrong with him."