"One moment, sir," Ray said, and left him standing at the bar, all alone.
In a few seconds he was back. "I didn't see the notebook myself, sir," he said. "But if Wally picked it up, he'd have turned it over to the maître d'. Perhaps you'd like to check with him."
"Sure," Malone said. The maître d' turned out to be a shortish, heavy-set man with large blue eyes, a silver mane and a thin, pencil-line mustache. He was addressed, for no reason Malone was able to discover, as BeeBee.
Ray introduced them. "This gentleman wants to know about a notebook," he told BeeBee.
"Notebook?" BeeBee said.
Malone explained at length. BeeBee nodded in an understanding fashion for some moments and, when Malone had finished, disappeared in search of the Lost and Found. He came back rather quickly, with the disturbing news that no notebook was anywhere in the place.
"It's got to be here," Malone insisted.
"Well," BeeBee said, "it isn't. Maybe you left it some place else. Maybe it's home now."
"It isn't," Malone said. "And I've tried every place else."
"New York's a big city, Mr. Malone," BeeBee said.