Champagne for One

I thanked her and hung up. Now that I was booked, I wasn’t so sure I liked it. It would be interesting, but it might also be a strain on the nerves. However, I was booked, and I rang Byne at the number he had given me and told him he could stay home and gargle. Then I went to Wolfe’s desk and wrote on his calendar Mrs Robilotti’s name and phone number. He wants to know where to reach me when I’m out, even when we have nothing important on, in case someone yells for help and will pay for it. Then I went to the hall, turned left, and pushed through the swinging door to the kitchen. Fritz was at the big table, spreading anchovy butter on shad roes.

"Cross me off for dinner," I told him. "I’m doing my good deed for the year and getting it over with."

He stopped spreading to look at me. "That’s too bad. Veal birds in casserole. You know, with mushrooms and white wine."

"I'll miss it. But there may be something edible where I’m going."

"Perhaps a client?"

He was not being nosy. Fritz Brenner does not pry into other people’s private affairs, not even mine. But he has a legitimate interest in the welfare of that establishment, of the people who live in that old brownstone on West Thirty-fifth Street, and he merely wanted to know if my dinner engagement was likely to promote it. It took a lot of cash. I had to be paid. He had to be paid. Theodore Horstmann, who spent all his days and sometimes part of his nights with the ten thousand orchids up in the plant rooms, had to be paid. We all had to be fed, and with the kind of grub that Wolfe preferred and provided and Fritz prepared. Not only did the orchids have to be fed, but only that week Wolfe had bought a Coelogyne from Burma for eight hundred bucks, and that was just routine. And so on and on and on, and the only source of current income was people with problems who were able and willing to pay a detective to handle them. Fritz knew we had no case going at the moment, and he was only asking if my dinner date might lead to one.

I shook my head. "Nope not a client." I got on a stool. "A former client, Mrs Robert Robilotti-someone swiped a million dollars’ worth of rings and bracelets from her a couple of years ago and we got them back-and I need some advice. You may not be as great an expert on women as you are on food, but you have had your dealings, as I well know, and I would appreciate some suggestions on how I act this evening."