Susan shrugged. "Sam thought you'd like to meet her, I guess. Really, you'll have to ask him. All I know is that she's been in here quite a lot about some claims. But she doesn't work here, believe me." She wrinkled her nose in amusement. "And I won't work here either, if I don't get back to my desk."
I took the hint. By lunch time, I had got through a good half of the accumulation on my desk. I ate briefly and not too well at a nearby trattoria with a "B" on the Blue Plate medallion in its window. After the dinner of the night before, I more than half agreed with Gogarty's comments about the Blue Plate menus.
Gogarty called me over when I got back to the office. He said, "I haven't had a chance to talk to you about Luigi Zorchi."
I nodded eagerly. I had been hoping for some explanations.
Gogarty went on, "Since you were on the scene when he took his dive, you might as well follow up. God knows you can't do worse than the rest of us."
I said dubiously, "Well, I saw the accident, if that's what you mean."
"Accident! What accident? This is the twelfth time he's done it, I tell you." He tossed a file folder at me. "Take a look! Loss of limbs—four times. Internal injuries—six times. Loss of vision, impaired hearing, hospitalization and so on—good lord, I can't count the number of separate claims. And, every one, he has collected on. Go ahead, look it over."
I peered at the folder. The top sheet was a field report on the incident I had watched, when the locomotive of the Milan express had severed both legs. The one below it, dated five weeks earlier, was for flash burns suffered in the explosion of a stove, causing the loss of the right forearm nearly to the elbow.
Curious, I thought, I hadn't noticed anything when I saw the man on the platform. Still, I hadn't paid too much attention to him at first, and modern prosthetic devices were nearly miraculous. I riffled through the red-bordered sheets. The fifth claim down, nearly two years before, was—