The Girl With the Long Green Heart by Lawrence Block Page B

yours?”
    “Well, he probably thinks he thought of it himself. I guess I actually led him into it. He told me he wished he could get more of a line on you, and that he was having dinner with you tonight, but that he didn’t think you’d be too keen on opening up to him. I said that a girl could probably draw you out a lot better, and I said something about the way you looked at my legs before. You did look at my legs, you know.”
    “I know.”
    “I told him this, and he paced around the room and asked me how I’d like to have dinner with you. I let him talk me into it. I’m supposed to give you the full treatment. Dinner at The Castle at a cozy table for two, and then some quiet spot for drinks, and then you’ll tell me secrets. You’ll let me dig all the information about the Barnstable operation out of you.”
    “I might just do that.”
    “This is the place,” she said suddenly. “Isn’t it incredible?”
    She pulled off the road to the right. There are probably as many restaurants in the country called The Castle as there are diners named Eat, but this was the first one I’d ever come across that looked the part. It was a sprawling brick-and-stone affair with towers and fortifications and pillars and gun turrets, everything but a moat, and all of this in a one-floor building. A medieval ranch house with delusions of grandeur.
    “Wait until you see the inside, John.”
    “It can’t live up to this.”
    “Wait.”
    Inside, there was a foyer with a fountain, a Grecian statue type of thing with water streaming from various orifices. The floor was tile, the walls all wood and leather, with rough-hewn beams running the length of the ceiling. The maître d’ beamed his way over to us, and Evvie said something about Mr. Gunderman’s table, and we were passed along to a captain and bowed through a cocktail lounge and a large dining room into something called the Terrace Room. The tables were set far apart, the lighting dim and intimate.
    We ordered martinis. “You might as well order big,” she told me. “He’ll be unhappy if I don’t give you the full treatment. This is a quite a place, isn’t it? You don’t expect it in Olean. But they have people who come from miles away to eat here.”
    “They couldn’t make out just with local trade.”
    “Hardly. The place seats over eight hundred. There are rooms and more rooms. And the food is very good. I think our drinks are coming.”
    The martinis were cold and dry and crisp. We had a second round, then ordered dinner. She touted the chateaubriand for two and I rode along with it.
    “I get called Evvie,” she said. “What do I call you?”
    “John will do.”
    “Doug Rance referred to you as Johnny.”
    “That’s his style. He’d love it if he could call me the Cheyenne Kid, as far as that goes.”
    “Is that where you’re from? Cheyenne?”
    “Colorado, now. Originally New Mexico.”
    “That’s what Wally said, but I didn’t know whether you’d been telling him the truth or not. You’ve got him on the hook, John. You really have him all hot and bothered.”
    “That’s what I thought.”
    “What happened at lunch?”
    I ran through it for her and she nodded, taking it all in. She was all wrapped up in the play herself. Usually I hate having an amateur in on things too deeply, but she seemed to have a feeling for the game. It wasn’t necessary to tell her things twice. She listened very intently with those brown eyes opened very wide and she hung on every word.
    “He was hopping when he got back to the office,” she said. “He was on the phone most of the day, and he dictated a batch of letters to me. Do you want to see them?”
    “Not here. I’ll have a look at them later. Who did he call?”
    “Different people, and he placed a few of the calls himself so I didn’t know who he was talking to. I think he made a few calls to Canada. He’s sure somebody made a strike up there. Uranium or oil or gold or something, he doesn’t