Hotline to Murder

Angeles.
    “Why not? We’ll give you a look at plastic city. They’ve recreated some of the great places in the world here—Paris, Venice, New York, Egypt. You just have to remember that it’s all fake.”
    “Don’t be so cynical. This is all new to me.”
    Paul didn’t appear at 1:30, the scheduled time. Tony wondered whether he was going to show up. They finished their lunches and continued to nurse their drinks.
    “How much time should we give him?” Shahla asked. She sounded restless, as if she would rather be sightseeing than playing detective.
    “We’ve driven all this way. Let’s give him until two.”
    At five minutes of two a tall young man walked into the coffee shop, or rather eased his way in. Considering his dominating height, he looked a little timid, as though he wasn’t sure how the world would treat him. Skinny as a broomstick, he wore thick-lensed glasses and had sandy hair that stuck out at odd angles. He had on a T-shirt with some writing on it and carried a notebook.
    “That’s him,” Shahla said. She raised her arm and waved at the man.
    Tony wondered how she could be so sure, but he spotted them and came toward their table with a shambling step, looking relieved. Maybe it was because they weren’t monsters.
    “You must be Paul,” Shahla said, standing up and extending her hand. “I’m Sally. And this is my brother, Tony.”
    Tony stood up and shook hands with him across the table. “Sit down,” he said. “Would you like something to eat?”
    “Maybe a coke,” Paul said, his first words other than hello.
    Tony signaled the waitress while Shahla said, “So what’s this limerick on your shirt?” She read it aloud:
    “ Now God was designing a mammal,
    With beauty and grace, without trammel,
    By computer, of course,
    The genetics said ‘horse,’
    But the disk crashed and out came a camel.”
    “The Association for the Prevention of Cruel Statements About Camels is not going to like that,” Tony said.
    Paul looked uncertain, as if he didn’t know whether Tony was serious. But then he smiled. He said, “I won a contest on the Internet for writing it.”
    “I like your sense of humor,” Shahla said. “I could see it in the poems on your website. “Does that book have your poems in it?”
    Paul nodded shyly.
    “May I see it?”
    He slid the notebook across the table to her. It was a three-ring binder, crammed full of pages. Tony wondered whether he spent all his time writing poetry. Didn’t he have to work for a living? And did all poets have a similar notebook? Shahla had said she kept her poems in one.
    Shahla started leafing through the book, reading and commenting on some of the poems, always positively. She and Tony had agreed that if he brought poems with him—and she had asked him to in her e-mails—that they would try to look at all of them. Of course, if they could find a copy of the spaghetti strap poem, that would be a coup. If not, they would look for other poems with similar style or subject matter.
    Tony was relying on Shahla to do most of the work. In retrospect, it was a good thing she was here. He would never have been able to fake enough of an interest in or knowledge about poetry to fool Paul. When Shahla excused herself to go to the lady’s room, he was stuck for something to say. He decided on a subject he knew something about.
    “Do you ever do any gambling?” he asked.
    “People who live here will tell you they don’t gamble,” Paul said, “but that’s not necessarily true. I like to play video poker once in a while.”
    “Where’s a good place to play?”
    “I like the New York-New York because it has some machines that pay eighty to one for four of a kind. They’re hidden in a corner as you curve around from the theaters.”
    “Thanks for the tip,” Tony said.
    Shahla came back, and the discussion returned to poetry.
    “I notice that a lot of your poems are about pain,” Shahla said. “You use metaphors for pain.”
    Paul didn’t immediately reply. Tony knew from his Hotline training that he and Shahla should remain silent and wait for Paul to say something. The silence dragged on for several minutes. Shahla continued to leaf through the book, looking completely at ease. Tony admired her composure.
    In his calls to the Hotline, Paul had sometimes talked about an abusive aunt. Or abusive parents. Somebody had abused him. Maybe that’s where the pain came from. If so, did that trauma color his feelings toward all