And Malone thought about answering that one. "Queen Elizabeth told me,"
was the literal truth, but somehow it didn't sound like it. And he
couldn't find another answer to give the girl.
"Dorothea," he said, and a voice from nowhere added:
"Will you have another drink?"
Malone exploded, "That's not the question. Drinks have nothing to do
with notebooks. I'm after notebooks. Can't you understand--" Belatedly,
he looked up.
There was Ray, the barman.
"Oh," he said.
"I just came over," Ray said. "And I figured if you couldn't find your
notebook, maybe you'd like a drink. So long as you're here."
"Ray," Malone said with feeling, "you are an eminently reasonable
fellow. I accept your solution. Nay, more. I endorse your solution.
Wholeheartedly."
Ray went off to mix, and Malone stared after him happily. This was
really a nice place, he reflected--almost as nice as the City Hall Bar
in Chicago where he'd gone long ago with his father.
But he tore his mind away from the happy past and concentrated, instead,
on the miserable present. He decided for the last time that he was not
going to ask Dorothea for the book--not just yet, anyhow. After all, it
wasn't as if he needed the book; he knew his own name, and he knew
Lynch's name, and he knew the names on the second page. And he didn't
see any particular need for a picture of a red Cadillac, no matter how
nicely colored it was.
So, he asked himself, why embarrass everybody by trying to get it back?
Of course, it _was_ technically a crime to pick pockets, and that went
double or triple for the pockets of FBI agents. But Malone told himself
that he didn't feel like pressing charges, anyhow. And Dorothy probably
didn't make a habit of pocket-picking.
He sighed and glanced at his watch. It was fifteen minutes of six.
Now, he knew what his next move was going to be.
He was going to go back to his hotel and change his clothes.
That is, he amended, as soon as he finished the drink that Ray was
setting up in front of him.