“What are you talking about?”

I tilted my head to one side, took hold of my chin with my thumb and forefinger, and let the words come out of the side of my mouth. “It’s like this, sweetheart,” I said. “I’ll find a place to sleep. You don’t have to worry about me.”

After I’d settled the check she said, “Caphob, caphob. Ohmigod.”

“What’s the matter?”

“Is it conceivable? Could it possibly be?”

“Could what possibly be?”

She took my arm. “Don’t you think maybe…no, you’ll just tell me I’m out of my mind.”

“I promise I won’t.”

“Okay, here’s what I was thinking. Maybe Caphob is the sled.”

“You’re out of your mind.”

“I know, but at least I got a laugh out of you. Bern, the only thing I really have to worry about is that you’ve seen too many movies. At any moment you’re liable to slip into character. Or do I mean out of character? Out of your own character and into his, that’s what I mean.”

“Not to worry,” I said. “You want a cab?”

“I think I’ll take the subway. It’s a nice night.”

“And you want to enjoy it way down below the pavement?”

“I mean I won’t mind the walk from the subway stop. You knew what I meant.”

“True. I want a cab, though. I have to go across town, and I don’t want to be late.” I held up a hand and a cab pulled up almost immediately. I asked Carolyn if she was sure she didn’t want it, and she said she was. I opened the door and the driver gave me a big smile, his eyes bright with recognition.

“Great to see you,” I told him. To Carolyn I said, “Get in. This cab’s for you.”

“But…”

“Come on,” I said. “How often do you get a chance to ride with a man who knows where Arbor Court is?” I held the door for her, leaned in, and urged Max to tell her about herbs. “But not about the woman and the monkey,” I added.

“Wait a minute,” Carolyn said. “What’s this about a woman and a monkey? I want to hear this.”

I closed the door and the cab pulled away. I hailed another, and asked the Vietnamese driver if he knew how to get to Seventy-fourth and Park.

“I’m sure I’ll be able to find it,” he said dryly. His name was Nguyen Trang, and he spoke good English and knew the city cold. As we rode across town he told me what a great city it was. “But the fucking Cambodians are ruining it,” he said.

CHAPTER Nineteen

Charlie Weeks was waiting in his doorway when the elevator let me out on the twelfth floor. “Ah, Mr. Thompson,” he said. “I’m so glad you could make it.” The elevator operator took this for a sign that I was welcome, and closed his door and descended.

Charlie held the door for me, followed me inside. “I thought I’d give them the same name as last time,” I told him. “It’s less confusing that way.”

“Less confusing for me as well,” he said. “I met you as Bill Thompson, and it’s hard to think of you as anyone else. What do they call you, anyway? Bernard? Bernie? Barney?”

“I’ll answer to almost anything. Bill, if you’d rather.”

“Oh, I can’t call you Bill, now that I know it’s not your name.” He looked me over carefully. “What’s your favorite animal?” he demanded.

“My favorite animal? Gee, I don’t know. I never really thought about it.”

“Never?”

He made me feel I’d wasted a lifetime thinking about relativity and quantum theory and dialectical materialism when I should have been selecting a favorite animal. “Well, I guess I must have given it a little thought,” I admitted.

“What’s your favorite?”

“It depends. For eating I’d go with cows, I guess, or sheep. Tofu’s not an animal, is it? No, of course not. It’s not even a bird. Uh…”

“Not to eat.”

“Right. Well, let’s see. Different animals for different things, I’d have to say. I have a cat working for me in the store, fine mouser. If you’re going to have an animal around a bookshop I don’t see how you could do better than a cat. Rabbits are cute, but a rabbit in a bookstore would be a disaster. They, uh, gnaw things. Books, for instance. Now, for swimming in figure eights, well, you can’t beat the polar bear I was watching the other day. Eight eight eight eight eight, just like a repeating decimal, you’d have sworn he thought he was the square root of minus something-or-other.”

His face held an expression of long-suffering. “The animal you identify with,” he said. “The animal you see yourself as.”

“Oh.” I thought it over. “I guess I’ve always seen myself as a person,” I said.

“If you were an animal, what kind of animal would you be?”

“I guess that would depend on what kind of animal I was. I know, I’m supposed to think hypothetically, but I seem to be having trouble. I’m sorry. Is this important?”

“No, of course not. Let’s just forget it.”

“No, dammit,” I said, “that’s not right. I ought to be able to figure this out.”

“I was the mouse,” he said patiently. “Wood was the woodchuck. Cappy Hoberman was the ram.”

“And Bateman was the rabbit and Renwick was the cat.”

“Rennick.”

“Right, Rennick. So you think I ought to have an animal code name?”

“It’s really not important,” he said. “I was just making conversation.”

“No, I’d be glad to have one,” I said, “but maybe it’s not the sort of thing a person should pick for himself. If you wanted to pick a name for me…”

“Hmmm,” he said, and stroked his chin with his fingertips. “Something in the weasel family, I think.”

“Something in the weasel family?”

“I would think so. An otter?”

“An otter?”

“No,” he said, “I don’t think so. Not an otter. The playful quality is there, to be sure, but the otter’s altogether too straightforward. I’d say not an otter.”

“Good,” I said. “Tastes of dog, anyway.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Nothing.”

“Something furtive,” he said. He put his palms together in front of his chest and made a sort of side-to-side motion. “Something nocturnal, something devious, something predatory. Something, oh, burglarous.”

“Burglarous,” I said.

“Not a wolverine, that’s altogether too rapacious. Nor a mink, I don’t believe. A badger?” He looked at me. “Not a badger. Perhaps a ferret.”

“A ferret?”

“Not a ferret. You know what? I think a weasel, a plain old garden-variety weasel.”

“Oh,” I said.

“You’re the weasel,” he said. He clapped me on the back. “Come on, weasel. Have a seat, make yourself comfortable. There’s coffee made.”

“Thank God,” I said.

The weasel was in the kitchen for a little over a half hour, passing on some facts and guesses to the mouse, drinking coffee, and listening to some reminiscences of skulduggery in the Balkans, circa 1950. It was absorbing and entertaining, and if not everything he told me was a hundred percent factual, well, that made us even.

It was close to midnight when I put down my coffee cup, got to my feet, and grabbed up my Braniff bag. “I’d better be going,” I said. “I have a feeling we’re getting somewhere, but maybe we shouldn’t bother. If Candlemas killed Hoberman, we don’t have to worry that he got away with it. He’s dead himself. He wasn’t my partner, and he forfeited any claim on my loyalties when he became a murderer. It might be interesting to know who killed him, but I can’t say it’s vitally important to me.”

“That’s a point.”

“Well, we can just take it a day at a time,” I said, “and see what happens. But I’m beat. I want to get on home.”

“I’ll see you out.”

I told him he didn’t have to go to the trouble, and he assured me it was no trouble. The next thing I knew we were out in the hall, waiting for the elevator I’d been careful not to ring for.

Hell.

I’d thought of having Carolyn call his number at a predetermined time, then contriving to be out in the hall waiting for the elevator at just that moment. But I’d decided it wouldn’t work. For one thing, trying to synchronize something like that is just about impossible. If the phone call comes a minute too early or late, the whole scheme falls flat. For another, his apartment was all the way down the hall, and you probably couldn’t hear his phone if you were standing by the elevator shaft.