If Death Ever Slept

“Not at any length. I don’t quite see when I’m going to discuss her at length with any of them. I don’t see how this is going to work. As your secretary I should be spending my day in here with you and Miss Kent, and if they spend the evening at bridge?”

“I know.” He tapped ash off in a tray. “You won’t have to spend tomorrow in here. I’m taking a morning plane to Toledo, and I don’t know when I’ll be back. Actually my secretary has damn little to do when I’m not here. Nora knows everything, and I’ll tell her to forget about you until I return. As I told you this afternoon, I’m certain that everybody here, every damn one of them, knows things about my daughter-in-law that I don’t know. Even my daughter. Even Nora.” His eyes were leveled at me. “It’s up to you. I’ve told you about my wife, she’ll talk your head off, but everything she tells you may or may not be so. Do you dance?”

“Yes.”

“Are you a good dancer?”

“Yes.”

“Lois likes to dance, but she’s particular. Take her out tomorrow evening. Has Roger hit you for a loan yet?”

“No. I haven’t been alone with him.”

“That wouldn’t stop him. When he does, let him have fifty or a hundred. Give him the impression that you stand in well with me-even let him think you have something on me. Buy my wife some flowers-nothing elaborate, as long as it’s something she thinks you paid for. She loves to have men buy things for her. You might take her to lunch, to Rusterman’s, and tip high. When a man tips high she takes it as a personal compliment.”

I wanted to move my chair back a little to get less of his cigar, but vetoed it. “I don’t object to the program personally,” I said, “but I do professionally. That’s a hell of a schedule for a secretary. They’re not halfwits.”