His doctor could offer no explanation. Cagle’s vital signs had stabilized and his heart showed no damage. His white count, EEG, and EKG were normal.
The man simply wasn’t waking up.
We’d barely left the hospital when Slidel started in.
“Sounds like trouble in queen city.”
I did not reply.
“The princess thinks the contessa was getting his weenie stroked behind his back.” Nope.
“And he don’t like the fact that the whistling gypsy lover is a looker.”
Catching the look on my face, Slidel fel silent. It didn’t last.
“Suppose Looper and that Gestapo secretary are describing the same squirrel?”
“It’s possible.”
“Think Cagle was seeing this guy on the side?”
“Looper may have imagined the romantic angle. It could have been anything.”
“Such as?”
I’d been asking myself that same question.
“Such as a potential student.”
“Gestapo Gert said the guy asking for Cagle wasn’t a kid.”
“Adults enrol in col ege courses.”
“Someone interested in a program would have left a message at the department office.” True.
“A workman of some sort.”
“Why meet the guy in a coffee shop?” Slidel asked.
“An insurance salesman.”
“Ditto.”
“Walter Cagle is a grown man.”
Slidel snorted. “Squirrel probably vacations at the Y.”
Slidel ’s homophobia was getting on my nerves.
“There are any number of persons with whom Walter Cagle might have shared a cup of coffee.”
“A pretty boy with drop-dead good looks that nobody close to the guy ever laid eyes on?”
“A lot of men fit that description,” I snapped.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Real men?”
“Bal busters!”
“You know any?”
“My daughter’s boyfriend,” I shot back without thinking.
“You sure he’s a boy?” Slidel patted his hair, flopped one wrist, snorted at his own joke.
Closing my eyes, I chose lyrics in my head. The Eagles. “Take It Easy.”
We drove out of Columbia, four o’clock sun flickering through the trees like light off a pinwheel. I felt so hostile toward Slidel I didn’t speak the entire way to Charlotte. When he lit up, I merely lowered my window, continued processing the events of the day in my mind.
Why had I thrown out that reference to Palmer Cousins? Was it merely a knee-jerk reaction to Slidel ’s wheedling, or was my subconscious seeing something that I was missing?
Did I distrust Palmer Cousins? Honest reply: yes.
Why? Because he was dating my daughter? Because of his seeming lack of knowledge of his own profession? Because he was handsome and lived in Columbia?
Who had Cagle met in the coffee shop? Who had visited the anthropology department? Was either man involved in the disappearance of Cagle’s report? Was either responsible for Cagle’s col apse? Were Looper and Dolores describing the same man?
Always, I came back to the same question.
Where was that report?
I vowed to find out.
My vow paid off sooner than I’d expected.