Dorothea relaxed in her chair and looked around at the hotel room walls with contentment. She looked like the proverbial cat who has swallowed the cream. "It looked to me as if it worked," she said. "Mike seemed pretty normal—except that he had that awful trapped feeling."
Malone handed her one of the filled glasses with an air. He was beginning slowly to feel less like the nervous, uncertain Kenneth J. Malone, and more and more like Sir Kenneth Malone. "I can see why he felt trapped," he said. "If a guy's been unhampered by four walls all the time, even only for a year or so, he's certainly going to feel penned in when he loses the ability to get through them. It might be just a little claustrophobic." He grinned, proud of himself. "Claustrophobic," he said again. "My tongue and palate are in excellent condition."
"The main thing is," Dorothea said, "that everybody's so happy. Commissioner Fernack, even—with Mr. Burris promising to give him a medal."
"And Lynch," Malone said reflectively. "He'll get a promotion out of this for sure. And good old Kettleman."
"Kettleman?" Dorothea said. "Oh, the funny fat man. He's some kind of social worker or something."
"And now he's getting a scroll from the FBI," Malone said. "A citation for coming up with the essential clue in this case. Even though he didn't know it was the essential clue. You know," he added reflectively, "one thing puzzles me about that man."
"Yes?"
"Well," Malone said, "he worked in your neighborhood. You knew him."
"Of course I did," Dorothea said. "We all knew Kettleman."
"He said he had a lot of success as a social worker," Malone said.
"Now, I've met him. And talked with him. And I just can't picture—"