My morning frenzy had left me sweaty and wrinkled, even a little smelly. I took an extra half hour to lie in a cool bath before changing into my jeans.

It was getting on for two now. Murray Ryerson should be back from his usual prolonged lunch with obscure sources. Fixing myself a sandwich with some of last night’s leftover chicken, I went into the living room and dialed his number at the Star. He answered the phone himself.

“Hi, Murray. It’s Vic.”

“Whoo, Vic, what a thrill. Let me get my asbestos gloves in case the phone gets too hot to handle.”

“Good thinking, Ryerson. The more sarcastic you get, the easier it will be to have this conversation.”

“O She-who-must-be-obeyed, to what do I owe the honor of your call? Or is it privilege? After you shouted vile words at me and slammed the phone in my ear last night?”

I ate some of my sandwich while I tried to figure out how to get us away from hostilities and to the point.

“You still there? Is this a new form of torture? You call up and then abandon the phone while I sit shouting into it like a fool?”

I washed down the sandwich with a mouthful of coffee. “I knew this wasn’t going to be an easy conversation before I picked up the phone. But someone said something so weird to me this morning that I thought we ought to try to overcome our mutual repugnance and talk.”

“Weird, huh? It wasn’t a personal comment, like on your disposition or something?”

I grinned to myself suddenly as I remembered Conrad Rawlings’s remarks on my orneriness. “Nah. Guys who aren’t strong enough to take me don’t worry me too much. This little comment had to do with the freedom of the press.”

“We all know the truth about that, Warshawski—that the press is free to anyone rich enough to own one.”

“So you don’t want to hear about it?”

“Did I say that? I’m just warning you not to expect me to go off on a crusade because of something that’s bugging you.”

“This is where I came in,” I complained. “You won’t listen to my stories, then you get offended when I won’t tell them to you on command.”

“Okay, okay,” he said hastily. “Tell me about the threat to my livelihood. If I listen intently and make appropriately outraged remarks, will you tell me about going into the San the other night?”

“It’s all tied together in one neat little package, babe.” I gave him a detailed account of my breakfast with Dick and Dick’s relief that Peter Felitti had been able to keep my exploits at Diamond Head out of the paper.

“See? You thought it was me not talking to you that kept you from getting the scoop. Really, it was Felitti talking to your publisher,” I finished.