"I wasn't kidding about being broke, Sam. This little babe I met had
very expensive tastes."
"I'm good for about thirty bucks," I said. "Then I'll have to get a
refill from petty cash."
"There's nothing petty about cash," Stew said.
* * * * *
Eurydice Playfair's suite was crowded to its expensive walls with
reporters, State Department people, Pentagon people--including some
high brass in uniform--and waiters. A bar was set up along one wall.
"At this hour of the morning?" I asked her.
"It's there for them as wants it," Riddie said. She was drinking coffee
herself.
There didn't seem to be any Monolithians present yet, but then no one
could tell for sure. I asked Riddie.
"No," she said. "We're saving them for the floor show."
"Something big?"
"I didn't lay on this spread just to say hello."
"Do they know what's going to happen?" I said, meaning the U.S.A.
contingent from Washington.
"No, they're just liaison. But, believe me, they're fairly perishing to
know."
"Whatever it is, will it make them gasp in the Ginza?" I asked.
"Sam," she said, "this'll pierce them in the Place Pigalle."
"Ah," I said, "but will it crush them in the Kremlin?"
"I have no more to say right now. Why don't you have some coffee?"
"I think I'll have a weak little Scotch and soda, if it's all the same
to you."
"It's not the same as coffee, that's for sure."
A man from the _Journal-American_ took her away and I went to the bar.
Stew was already there with a glass of something that was neither small
nor weak.
"Did you pump her, Sam?" he asked.
"She's a dry well."
"I have circumnavigated the room and there is nothing. Sealed are the
lips. Or blank are the minds, I don't know which."
"You sound as if you've been talking to the man from _Time_. Give John
a call, will you, Stew? He might want a little color story."
"He always wants a little color story." He went off to one of the
two-dozen telephones Riddie had provided.
I asked the barman to weaken up my drink with more soda. Caterers are
always very generous with the customer's whiskey.
Riddie got up on a chair at the end of the room and clapped her hands.
"I guess everybody's here," she said. "I've asked you to come here
this morning, ladies and gentlemen, to meet two other members of the
ambassadorial staff from Monolithia. They will enter through this door
on my right in a moment. Before they do, you may wish to make a note of
their names. They are Mr. Quy--spelled Q-u-y but pronounced 'Key'--and
Mr. Brown."
Stew, back from the telephone, whispered, "Have you noticed how all of
them have one-syllable names?"