Dark Maze

on past her toward the great man’s office and she did not seem to mind. But Prescott did.
    “Just who the hell do you think...“
    Wendell Prescott stood up from behind his desk as he said this. Except for their different haircuts, Wendell and his brother Daniel—The Dan—were twins. They both had puffy faces as white as Maine potatoes, small feminine lips, high-pitched nasal voices, and pointy little muskrat teeth.
    “Detective Hockaday,” I said, walking to him. I showed him my shield. He glanced at it the way most people do and then took a look at my clothes; he did not seem to approve. “Sir, I think we need to talk.”
    “I doubt if my lawyer would think the same,” he said. “Your lawyer? I come up here to warn you about a crazed murderer who’s probably after you right now, and what you do is you tell me about your lawyer?”
    Prescott ’s puffy white face went even whiter. “Look, I… ”
    “You want to call up your lawyer, that’s okay,” I said. “Maybe I should just forget about you. Do I look like I care if a rich real estate guy gets popped by some maniac?”
    By this time I was making a big impression on Prescott’s sense of self-preservation. He relented and allowed, “Well, maybe it’d be okay,” and he sank back into his seat and w aved his hand around saying, “Make yourself comfortable.”
    Wendell’s private office was small but poshy. There was an Oriental rug on the floor, dark red with blues and beiges in it. And a large desk with a green leather top, some lithographs of old New York street scenes on one wall, a sofa and matching wing chair upholstered in soft navy blue corduroy and even a mahogany liquor cabinet. It was a room I would have liked for myself, except for a framed photograph on the other wall of a grinning George Bush dressed up in his inauguration tux and flanked by the Prescott twins.
    I walked up to the photo and said, “It’s really hard to tell you guys apart. I mean you and your brother.”
    “My brother and I are very different men,” Prescott said. There was a catch in his voice that reminded me of what Johnny Halo had said about the rivalry between Daniel and Wendell.
    “Well, you’ve got different hairdos,” I said.
    “Dan’s hair is too long and it’s all feathery, like he’s some heartthrob on a soap opera,” Prescott said, the catch rising. His own hair was cut in a standard corporate style. “And that’s the least of our differences.”
    “I like that one over there,” I said, pointing to the navy blue wing chair. “Would you mind if we sat down now, sir? And would you have something to drink?”
    Prescott looked at his wristwatch, so I looked at my own. His was a silver Cartier tank model. My brand ended in the letters ex, but not like in Rolex.
    To help him make up his mind, I said, “Have a heart, Mr. Prescott. It’s almost five and time for cocktails and I’ve been on my feet for hours out in Coney Island. I met a lot of people out there who don’t much like the idea of your tearing everything down in Astroland and shoving them aside just to maybe put up casinos. You might say they’re violently opposed to the idea.”
    I was then invited to sit in the blue chair. Prescott opened the liquor cabinet and asked if I might want a taste of his twenty-one-year-old Macallan’s single-malt Scotch whiskey.
    “Is the Pope Catholic?” I answered. He poured us each a jar and then sat down across from me on the blue sofa and regarded me with his cool, watery eyes as if considering me for a major role in the cement foundation of his next building project.
    “A lot of those people out in Coney Island,” Prescott said, “would like nothing better than for me to improve the neighborhood with casino gambling.”
    “What people? You mean that dwarf they call Big Stuff? What do you pay him to peddle your propaganda anyway?“
    “I don’t know if I like the turn this chat of ours is taking. Maybe I should call in my lawyer, Detective... Hockaday, is it?”
    But Prescott made no move for his telephone.
    “You know the name and you know exactly who I am,” I said. “But go call your lawyer. I’m not the one who’ll get his bill in the mail. Maybe the counselor can help us figure out our problem.”
    Prescott put back his drink and grinned at me. It looked as sincere as George Bush’s grin. As sincere as a cheap toupee.
    “It strikes me you’re the only one with a problem here, Hockaday. Which I think you’ve already