The name plopped in the middle of us like a paratrooper at a picnic.
“By God!” Wayne Safford exclaimed.
“How the devil—” Frank Broadyke started, and stopped.
“So you told him!” Pohl spat at Dorothy Keyes.
Dorothy merely raised her brows. I was getting fed up with that routine and wished she would try something else.
Audrey Rooney’s mouth was hanging open.
“Show him in,” Wolfe told Fritz.
V
Like millions of my fellow citizens, I had done some sizing up of Victor Talbott from pictures of him in the papers, and within ten seconds after he had joined us in the office I had decided the label I had tied on him could stay. He was the guy who, at a cocktail party or before dinner, grabs the tray of appetizers and passes it around, looking into eyes and making cracks.
Not counting me, he was easily the best-looking male in the room.