"Came for?" Mr. Oyster snorted. "I'm merely waiting for your girl to make out my receipt. I thought you had already left."
"You'll miss your plane," Betty said.
There was suddenly a double dip of ice cream in my stomach. I walked over to my desk and looked down at the calendar.
Mr. Oyster was saying something to the effect that if I didn't leave today, it would have to be tomorrow, that he hadn't ponied up that thousand dollars advance for anything less than immediate service. Stuffing his receipt in his wallet, he fussed his way out the door.
I said to Betty hopefully, "I suppose you haven't changed this calendar since I left."
Betty said, "What's the matter with you? You look funny. How did your clothes get so mussed? You tore the top sheet off that calendar yourself, not half an hour ago, just before this marble-missing client came in." She added, irrelevantly, "Time travelers yet."
I tried just once more. "Uh, when did you first see this Mr. Oyster?"
"Never saw him before in my life," she said. "Not until he came in this morning."
"This morning," I said weakly.
While Betty stared at me as though it was me that needed candling by a head shrinker preparatory to being sent off to a pressure cooker, I fished in my pocket for my wallet, counted the contents and winced at the pathetic remains of the thousand. I said pleadingly, "Betty, listen, how long ago did I go out that door—on the way to the airport?"