“Quitting time,” said Pool, standing in the doorway of Pender’s office, holding her purse.
“Already?” Pender glanced at his watch, widened his eyes comically. “Oh well. Like the frog said, time’s fun when you’re having flies.”
“Are you working late?”
Pender nodded. “One thing I’ve learned about the Beltway at rush hour: you can spend it sitting in traffic or you can spend it sitting in your office-either way, you spend it sitting.”
“Good night, then.”
“G’night, Pool.” Pender waited with his great bald head cocked, listening for the civilized little ding of the elevator bell and the whoosh of the elevator doors, then unlocked the bottom left drawer of his desk, took out a shot glass and a bottle of Jim Beam, and poured himself his first drink of the day.
To demonstrate his mastery over the booze (as if holding off your first drink until after 5:00 weren’t proof enough), Pender took only the smallest of sips, savoring it appreciatively and at length before knocking back the rest of the shot. He sighed as the whiskey hit his stomach and began to spread its amber warmth outward.
After his second drink, Pender had mellowed enough to think about telephoning Pam to congratulate her on opening her own agency. Then he remembered how badly their last conversation-it had to have been at least a year ago-had gone, and had just about decided to send her a congratulatory telegram instead, when his desk phone rang.
“Pender here.”
“Ed, it’s Thom Davies.” Pronounced Davis-the database wizard was an expatriate Shropshire lad.
Pender grabbed a pad and pencil. “What’ve you got for me, Tommy boy?”
“The greatest of admiration, along with the following information regarding your alleged live one.”
“Shoot.”
“All righty, then: Mistah Sweet, he dead.”
“Dead,” Pender echoed weakly. He’d been so sure of the scenario he’d constructed in his mind that he’d forgotten it was only a scenario.
“Dead. Deceased. ’E’s a stiff. Bereft of life. Pushing up daisies. Kicked the bucket. Joined the bleedin’ choir invis-”
“I got it, I got it.” Pender cut him off before he could run through the rest of the dead parrot sketch. “This is Luke Sweet Junior we’re talking about?”
“It is indeed. Do you remember that California mental hospital that went up in blazes a couple of weeks ago?”
“Vaguely.”
“That’s probably because Oklahoma City knocked it clean off the front pages two days later. At any rate, according to the San Jose Mercury News, your man was one of the inmates presumed to have died in the fire.”
“Presumed?” Pender pronounced it with the same distaste most people reserve for words like smegma.
“I gather there was some difficulty sorting out the remains.”
“Yeah, well, speaking of remains, I see by today’s stranger homicides list that somebody murdered Sweet’s maternal grandparents last week.”
“So you think the reports of his death may be exaggerated?”
“Considerably. Would you mind faxing over those newspaper articles?”
“Or I could teach you how to run a search on your computer. You know, that white box thingie on your desk, looks a little like a television set?”
“I was wondering what that was,” said Pender.