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investigation that
The sudden fussy clearing of a throat broughtMargo back to the present. She looked up to see a short
man standing before her, wearing a worn tweed suit, his leathery face lined with innumerable wrinkles.
I thought I heard somebody wandering around my skele-tons, Hagedorn said, frowning, tiny arms
crossed in front of his chest. Well?
Despite herself,Margo felt annoyance begin to take the place of her daydreams. His skeletons, indeed.
Stifling her ir-ritation, she pulled a sheet of paper from her carryall. Dr. Frock wants these specimens
sent up to the Forensic Anthro-pology lab, she replied, handing the sheet toHagedorn.
He scanned it, the frown deepening. Threeskeletons? he said. That s somewhat irregular.
Up yours, Stumpy. It s important we get these right away, she said. If there s a problem, I m sure
Dr. Merriam will give whatever authorization you need.
Mentioning the Director s name had the desired effect. Oh, very well. But it s still irregular. Come with
me.
He led her back toward an ancient wooden desk, heavily scarred and pitted from years of neglect.
Behind the desk in rows of tiny drawers wasHagedorn s filing system. He checked the first number
on Frock s list, then ran a thin yellow finger down drawers. Stopping at last, he pulled out a drawer,
rifled through the cards within, and plucked one out, harrumphing in displeasure. 1930-262, he read.
Just my luck. On the very top tier. I m not as young as I used to be, you know. Heights bother me.
Suddenly he stopped. This is a medical skeleton, he said, pointing to a red dot in the upper right-hand
corner of the card.
All of the requests are, Margo replied. Though it was clearHagedorn wanted an explanation, she fell
into a stubborn silence. At last the administrator cleared his throat again, his eyebrows contracting at the
irregularity of the request. If you insist, he said, sliding the card across the desk toward her. Sign this,
add your extension and department, and don t for-get to place Frock s name in the Supervisor column.
Margolooked at the grimy paper, its edges soft with wear and age.It s a library card, she thought.How
quaint. The skeleton s name was printed neatly at the top: Homer Maclean. That was one of Frock s
requests, all right: a victim of neurofibromatosis, if she remembered correctly.
She bent forward to scrawl her name in the first blank row, then stopped abruptly. There, three or four
names up the list of previous researchers, was the jagged scrawl she remem-bered so well: G. S.
Kawakita, Anthropology. He d taken this very skeleton out for research five years earlier. Not
surprising, she supposed: Greg had always been fascinated by the unu-sual, the abnormal, the exception
to the rule. Perhaps that s why he d been attracted to Dr. Frock and his theory of fractal evolution.
She remembered how Greg had been notorious for using this very storage room for fly-casting practice,
snapping nymphs down the narrow rows during practically every coffee break. WhenHagedorn was not
around, of course. She sup-pressed a grin.
That does it, she thought. I ll look up Greg s number in the phone book this evening. Better late
than never.
There was a high-pitched, rattling wheeze, and she looked up from the card into the small impatient eyes
ofHagedorn. It s just yourname I want, he said waspishly. Not a line of lyric poetry. So stop thinking
so hard and let s get on with it, shall we?
= 10 =
The broad ornate front of the Polyhymnia Club squatted on West 45th Street, its marble and sandstone
bulk heaving out-ward like the stern of some Spanish galleon. Above its awning, a gilt statue of the club s
namesake, the muse of rhetoric, stood on one foot as if poised to take flight. Beneath it, the club s
revolving door did a brisk Saturday evening business; although patronage was limited to members of the
New York press, that still let in, as Horace Greeley once complained, half the un-employed young dogs
south of Fourteenth Street.
Deep within its oak fastness, BillSmithback stepped up to the bar and ordered a Caol Ilawithout ice.
Though he was for the most part uninterested in the club s pedigree, he was very interested in its unique
collection of specially imported scotch whisky. The single malt filled his mouth with the sensation of peat
smoke and Loch nam Ban water. He savored it for a long moment, then glanced around, ready to drink
in the congrat-ulating nods and admiring glances of his fellow pressmen.
Getting the Wisher assignment had been one of the biggest breaks of his life. Already, it had netted him
three front-page stories in less than a week. He d even been able to make the ramblings and vague
threats of the homeless leader,Mephisto, seem incisive and pertinent. Just that afternoon, asSmithback
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