Animal Appetite

door. Rita’s heels tapped up the stairs. Overhead, Willie, her Scottie, barked a welcome.
    “Truly, guys, I’m sorry,” I said. “Any minute now.”
    Rita informs me that a moderate level of anxiety has a beneficial effect on intellectual performance but that terror makes you stupid. In retrospect, it’s clear that I should have called Rita and Cecily to warn them to stay inside and, above all else, to let no one into the building. Instead, I phoned Estelle Grant and got stuck listening to her blather about some New York literary agent’s supposed interest in Multitudes in the Valley of Decision. I tried to be patient. Estelle’s dreadful novel was, after all, what had precipitated my call. What was it she’d said? Something about how vital it was to start with what you know. One of her characters had obviously been based on Jack Andrews, another on Shaun McGrath. The house of prostitution was a transformation of the publishing house. In the novel, the house was raided by the police. The real rats appeared, as did the poison. If Jack, Shaun, the press, the police, the rats, and the poison, why not Randall Carey?
    Multitudes in the Valley of Decision. The material Estelle had gathered. The preponderant material in the book? Leather.
    Breaking in recklessly, I demanded, “Estelle, have you ever happened to run into a guy named Randall Carey?”
    “Oh, him! Hey, let me give you some advice. Stay away from him. He’s really... Well, chacun a son gout ”—she paused to translate—“to each his own and all that, and if that’s what appeals to you, I don’t have a problem with it, but if you ask me, he’s... Well, of course, the literary act is one thing, and it’s certainly necessary to connect the passion to the prose and so forth, and if that’s what you —”
    “Not me,” I said.
    “Well, then, stay away from him.”
    “You met him at Damned Yankee Press.” It wasn’t a question.
    “He had an appointment with Jack.”
    “On Friday. The Friday before Jack was murdered.”
    “Yes. And as usual, everything there was in total chaos, and Carey ended up having to wait around in the front office. Elsie was there—I mentioned her to you— and one or two of the part-time people, and they were all supposed to be working on mail orders that, per usual, were all backed up, and Shaun breezed through and yelled at everyone, especially me, of course, because everything’s always the temp’s fault. Anyway, I gave Randall Carey some coffee, and he sat around, and then Jack finally got around to seeing him. And then, by the time he finished seeing Jack, it was five o’clock, and when he was on his way out, I was leaving, and he asked me out for a drink.”
    “You went with him.”
    “Stupid me. First of all, he took me to this place with leather seats, not that that’s telling in itself, really, but the fact is that he was very supercilious and condescending and snide. I should’ve gone home.”
    “Did you talk about the rats? And the poison?”
    “Not then. Not that I remember. We probably did while he was waiting to see Jack. We must’ve, because I’m sure it was Friday when Jack finally threw that poison out. And Friday wasn’t even trash day! So that’s where Shaun got the poison, of course, out of one of the trash barrels in back of the building. He heard us talking, and then he came sneaking back over the weekend and went through the barrels until he found the poison. I know we were all talking. In case you wondered, not a lot of work got done around there.”
    He overheard. He snuck back sometime during the weekend. He found the poison. Yes, he did. But he was not Shaun McGrath.
    “After Shaun, uh, breezed through, did you talk about him?”
    “Probably. I know he yelled at everyone, so we would’ve. Yeah, we must’ve.”
    “And after you had a drink with Randall Carey?”
    “I’d really rather forget it. Art is one thing, but... I found it very humiliating.” In complimentary tones, she almost whispered, “And I’m quite sure that you would, too.”
    “I’m sure I would. Estelle, have you seen Randall Carey since then? Around the Square? Have you ever...?”
    “Once or twice, but I’ve hightailed it in the opposite direction.”
    “Estelle, besides, uh, other things, that evening, did Randall Carey ask you about Jack Andrews? His habits, his schedule, anything like that?”
    “The fact is that I had too much to drink. And then
    later, we did some dope, and... You