“Oh, you can’t wait.” I got the paper out and read the list of towns and dates to him. Twice he said I was going too fast, so apparently he was taking it down. When that farce was over I asked, “After I feed him, then what?”
“Call in again when you’ve had your lunch.”
I banged the thing on the hook.
X
They were good sandwiches. The beef was tender and full of hot salty sap, with just the right amount of fat, and the bread had some character. I was a little short on milk, having got only a pint, but stretched it out. In between bites we discussed matters, and I made a mistake. I should of course have told Pohl nothing whatever, especially since the more I saw of him the less I liked him, but the sandwiches were so good that I got careless and let it out that as far as I knew no attack had been made on the phone girl and the waiter at the Hotel Churchill. Pohl was determined to phone Wolfe immediately to utter a howl, and in order to stop him I had to tell him that Wolfe had other men on the case and I didn’t know who or what they were covering.
I was about to phone myself when the door opened and Dorothy Keyes and Victor Talbott walked in.
I stood up. Pohl didn’t.
“Hello hello,” I said cheerfully. “Nice place you have here.”
Neither of them even nodded to me. Dorothy dropped into a chair against a wall, crossed her legs, and turned her gaze on Pohl with her chin in the air.
Talbott marched over to us at the ebony desk, stopped at my elbow, and told Pohl, “You know damn well you’ve got no right here, going through things and trying to order the staff around. You have no right here at all. I’ll give you one minute to get out.”