"I guess you're right," I said and I was an hour late getting to Aimee Driscoll's apartment next morning.
I was lucky at that. She'd just gotten up and was in a vicious mood. She handed me the freeze reserved for Squares and I handed it right back. That gave us an understanding and put us on a basis of armed neutrality as fellow members of the entertainment profession. The blonde and I passed a few remarks about the Quaker. She called my attention to the new television set and laughed it up because she'd gotten it out of the Quaker for nothing; but I noticed that she laughed angrily. I didn't know why.
The photograph should have tipped it. It stood on the set in a silver frame, faded and vignetted, a costume piece, circa 1913. It was a portrait of a man with heavy brows and a stern face and could have been a photograph of Lennox in costume and makeup. The fact that she'd placed it on the set Lennox gave her was significant, but I only realized that after the death in the Venice theater.
"Who's the grim reaper?" I asked.
"My old man," Aimee answered. She darted a look of loathing at the photograph. It was so poisonous that I wanted to ask more questions, but before I could get started, she gave me the brush-final. I left with Jake's gimmick book and burberry and didn't get to the library until eleven....
Lennox marched into the Grabinett office at ten sharp. It was in a small building off Madison Avenue in the fifties. Grabinett had started there as a two-bit agent in a rat-hole, and when he hit the big money it turned out that rentals were too tight for him to move into larger quarters. He spread into stockrooms, broke through closets and halls, had it all decorated and air-conditioned, and it still looked like a blond wood rat-hole. They held daily rat-races there.
Grabinett was in his corner office eating Danish and coffee and reading Red Channels. There was a stack of mail, Nielsen Reports, Variety, Billboard, Radio and TV Newssheets on the desk before him. Lennox tore off his coat, revealing that he was still wearing black tie. He flung the coat on a chair piled with bundles of stenciled scripts.
Grabinett eyed Lennox with lively hatred and verged on continuing the battle from the night before until his attention was distracted by the dinner jacket.
"What's this?" he blinked.
"Costume."