AllFreeNovel
Share Us
"The check-in girl at the airport . . . " he said at last.
"She drove me mad," said Kate, instantly. "She just went through the motions of doing her job like some kind of blank machine. Wouldn't listen, wouldn't think. I don't know where they find people like that."
"She used to be my secretary, in fact," said Dirk. "They don't seem to know where to find her now, either."
"Oh. I'm sorry," said Kate immediately, and then reflected for a moment.
"I expect you're going to say that she wasn't like that really" she continued. "Well, that's possible. I expect she was just shielding herself from the frustrations of her job. It must drive you insensible working at an airport. I think I would have sympathised if I hadn't been so goddamn frustrated myself. I'm sorry, I didn't know. So that's what you're trying to find out about."
Dirk gave a non-committal type of nod. "Amongst other things," he said. Then he added, "I'm a private detective."
"Oh?" said Kate in surprise, and then looked puzzled.
"Does that bother you?"
"It's just that I have a friend who plays the double bass."
"I see," said Dirk.
"Whenever people meet him and he's struggling around with it, they all say the same thing, and it drives him crazy. They all say, 'I bet you wished you played the piccolo.' Nobody ever works out that that's what everybody else says. I was just trying to work out if there was something that everybody would always say to a private detective, so that I could avoid saying it."
"No. What happens is that everybody looks very shifty for a moment, and you got that very well."
"I see." Kate looked disappointed. "Well, do you have any clues--that is to say, any idea about what's happened to your secretary?"
"No," said Dirk, "no idea. Just a vague image that I don't know what to make of." He toyed thoughtfully with his cigarette, and then let his gaze wander over the table again and on to the book.
He picked it up and looked it over, wondering what impulse had made him pick it up in the first place.
"I don't really know anything about Howard Bell," he said.
Kate was surprised at the way he suddenly changed the subject, but also a little relieved.
"I only know," said Dirk, "that he sells a lot of books and that they all look pretty much like this. What should I know?"
"Well, there are some very strange stories about him."
"Like what?"
"Like what he gets up to in hotel suites all across America. No one knows the details, of course, they just get the bills and pay them because they don't like to ask. They feel they're on safer ground if they don't know. Particularly about the chickens."
"Chickens?" said Dirk. "What chickens?"
"Well apparently," said Kate, lowering her voice and leaning forward a little, "he's always having live chickens delivered to his hotel room."
Dirk frowned.
"What on earth for?" he said.
"Nobody knows. Nobody ever knows what happens to them. Nobody ever sees them again. Not," she said, leaning even further forward, and dropping her voice still further, "a single feather."
Dirk wondered if he was being hopelessly innocent and nave.
"So what do people think he's doing with them?" he asked.
"Nobody," Kate said, "has the faintest idea. They don't even want to have the faintest idea. They just don't know."
She shrugged and picked the book up again herself.
"The other thing David--that's my brother--says about him is that he has the absolute perfect bestseller's name."
"Really?" said Dirk. "In what way?"
"David says it's the first thing any publisher looks for in a new author. Not, 'Is his stuff any good?' or, 'Is his stuff any good once you get rid of all the adjectives?' but, 'Is his last name nice and short and his first name just a bit longer?' You see? The 'Bell' is done in huge silver letters, and the 'Howard' fits neatly across the top in slightly narrower ones. Instant trade mark. It's publishing magic. Once you've got a name like that then whether you can actually write or not is a minor matter. Which in Howard Bell's case is now a significant bonus. But it's a very ordinary name if you write it down in the normal way, like it is here you see."
"What?" said Dirk.
"Here on this envelope of yours."
"Where? Let me see."
"That's his name there, isn't it? Crossed out."
"Good heavens, you're right," said Dirk, peering at the envelope. "I suppose I didn't recognise it without its trade mark shape."
"Is this something to do with him, then?" asked Kate, picking it up and looking it over.
"I don't know what it is, exactly," said Dirk. "It's something to do with a contract, and it may be something to do with a record."
"I can see it might be to do with a record."
"How can you see that?" asked Dirk, sharply.
"Well, this name here is Dennis Hutch, isn't it? See?"
"Oh yes. Yes, I do," said Dirk, examining it for himself. "Er, should I know that name?"
"Well," said Kate slowly, "it depends if you're alive or not, I suppose. He's the head of the Aries Rising Record Group. Less famous than the Pope, I grant you, but--you know of the Pope I take it?"
"Yes, yes," said Dirk impatiently, "white-haired chap."
"That's him. He seems to be about the only person of note this envelope hasn't been addressed to at some time. Here's Stan Dubcek, the head of Dubcek, Danton, Heidegger, Draycott. I know they handle the ARRGH! account."
"The . . . ?"
"ARRGH! Aries Rising Record Group Holdings. Getting that account made the agency's fortunes."
She looked at Dirk.
"You have the air," she stated, "of one who knows little of the record business or the advertising business."
"I have that honour," said Dirk, graciously inclining his head.
"So what are you doing with this?"
"When I manage to get it open, I'll know," said Dirk. "Do you have a knife on you?"
Kate shook her head.
"Who's Geoffrey Anstey, then?" she asked. "He's the only name not crossed out. Friend of yours?"
Dirk paled a little and didn't immediately answer. Then he said, "This strange person you mentioned, this 'Something Nasty in the Woodshead' creature. Tell me again what he said to you."
"He said, 'I, too, have the advantage of you, Miss Schechter.'" Kate tried to shrug.
Dirk weighed his thoughts uncertainly for a moment.
"I think it is just possible," he said at last, "that you may be in some kind of danger."
"You mean it's possible that passing lunatics may crash into me in the road? That kind of danger?"
"Maybe even worse."
"Oh yeah?"
