It always irritated him if I talked like that. He had drilled it into me that when giving information I must be specific, especially in identifying objects or persons. But since the call had been from Bari, and there was only one female in that part of the world that we were interested in, I didn’t raise the point.
“Where?” I asked. “Bari?”
“No. Montenegro. Word came across.”
“What or who killed her?”
“He says he doesn’t know, except that she died violently. He wouldn’t say she was murdered, but certainly she was. Can you doubt it?”
“I can, but I don’t. What else?”
“Nothing. But for the bare fact, nothing. Even if I could have got more out of him, what good would it do me, sitting here?”
He looked down at his thighs, then at the right arm of his chair, then at the left arm, as if to verify the fact that he really was sitting. Abruptly he shoved his chair back, arose, and moved. He went to the television cabinet and stood a while staring at the screen, then turned and crossed to the most conspicuous object in the office, not counting him — the thirty-six-inch globe — twirled it, stopped it, and studied geography a minute or two. He about-faced, went to his desk, picked up a book he was halfway through — But We Were Born Free by Elmer Davis — crossed to the bookshelves, and eased the book in between two others. He turned to face me and inquired, “What’s the bank balance?”
“A little over twenty-six thousand, after drawing the weekly checks. You put the checks in the wastebasket.”
“What’s in the safe?”