If Death Ever Slept

To be fair to Wednesday, it’s true that it was more productive than Tuesday, but that’s not saying I got any further along. It added one more to my circle of acquaintances. That was in the morning, just before noon. Having turned in around two and stayed in bed for my preferred minimum of eight hours, as I went downstairs I was thinking that breakfast would probably be a problem, but headed for the dining room anyway just to see, and in half a minute there was Steck with orange juice. I said that and coffee would hold me until lunch, but no, sir. In ten minutes he brought toast and bacon and three poached eggs and two kinds of jam and a pot of coffee. That attended to, in company with the morning Times, I went to the library and spent half an hour not chatting with Nora Kent. She was there, and I was willing to converse, but she either had things to do or made things to do, so after a while I gave up and departed. She did say that Jarrell’s plane would be due at La Guardia at 3:05 p.m.

Strolling along the corridor toward the front and seeing that my watch said 11:56, I thought I might as well stop in at the studio for the twelve o’clock news. The door was closed, and I opened it and entered, but two steps in I stopped. It was inhabited. Susan was in a chair, and standing facing her was a stranger, a man in a dark gray suit with a jaw that looked determined in profile. Evidently he had been too occupied to hear the door opening, for he didn’t wheel to me until I had taken the two steps.

“Sorry,” I said, “I’m just cruising,” and was going, but Susan spoke.

“Don’t go, Mr. Green. This is Jim Eber. Jim, this is Alan Green. You know he-I mentioned him.”

My predecessor was still occupied, but not too much to lift a hand. I took it, and found that his muscles weren’t interested. He spoke, not as if he wanted to. “I dropped in to see Mr. Jarrell, but he’s away. Nothing important, just a little matter. How do you like the job?”

“I’d like it fine if it were all like the first two days. When Mr. Jarrell gets back, I don’t know. I can try. Maybe you could give me some pointers.”

“Pointers?”

You might have thought it was a word I had just made up. Obviously his mind wasn’t on his vocabulary or on me; it was working on something, and not on getting his job back or I would have been a factor.

“Some other time,” I said. “Sorry I interrupted.”

“I was just going,” he said, and, with his jaw set, marched past me and on out.

“Oh dear,” Susan said.