Nevertheless, he told himself, Boyd's beard was really an admirable fact of nature. Ever since beards had become popular again in the mid-sixties, and FBI agents had been permitted to wear them, Malone had thought about growing one. But, somehow, it didn't seem right.
Now, looking at Boyd, he began to think about the prospect again.
He shrugged the notion away. There were things to do.
He picked up the phone and called Information.
"Can you give me," he said, "the number of the Desert Edge Sanitarium?"
The crimson blob of the setting sun was already painting the desert sky with its customary purples and oranges by the time the little caravan arrived at the Desert Edge Sanitarium, a square white building several miles out of Las Vegas. Malone, in the first car, wondered briefly about the kind of patients they catered to? People driven mad by vingt-et-un or poker-dice? Neurotic chorus ponies? Gambling czars with delusions of non-persecution?
Sitting in the front seat next to Boyd, he watched the unhappy San Francisco agent manipulating the wheel. In the back seat, Queen Elizabeth Thompson and Lady Barbara, the nurse, were located, and Her Majesty was chattering away like a magpie.
Malone eyed the rear-view mirror to get a look at the car following them and the two local FBI agents in it. They were, he thought, unbelievably lucky. He had to sit and listen to the Royal Personage in the back seat.
"Of course, as soon as Parliament convenes and recognizes me," she was saying, "I shall confer personages on all of you. Right now, the best I can do is to knight you all, and of course that's hardly enough. But I think I shall make Sir Kenneth the Duke of Columbia."