At nine sharp the morning after I had stopped Elrod T. Sykes for drunk driving, a lawyer, not Elrod Sykes, was in my office. He was tall and had silver hair, and he wore a gray suit with red stones in his cuff links. He told me his name but it wouldn't register. In fact, I wasn't interested in anything he had to say.

"Of course, Mr. Sykes is at your disposal," he said, "and both he and I appreciate the courtesy which you extended to him last night. He feels very bad about what happened, of course. I don't know if he told you that he was taking a new prescription for his asthma, but evidently his system has a violent reaction to it. The studio also appreciates-"

"What is your name again, sir?"

"Oliver Montrose."

I hadn't asked him to sit down yet. I picked up several paper clips from a small tin can on my desk and began dropping them one by one on my desk blotter.

"Where's Sykes right now, Mr. Montrose?"

He looked at his watch.

"By this time they're out on location," he said. When I didn't respond, he shifted his feet and added, "Out by Spanish Lake."

"On location at Spanish Lake?"

"Yes."

"Let's see, that's about five miles out of town. It should take no longer than fifteen minutes to drive there from here. So thirty minutes should be enough time for you to find Mr. Sykes and have him sitting in that chair right across from me."

He looked at me a moment, then nodded.

"I'm sure that'll be no problem," he said.

"Yeah, I bet. That's why he sent you instead of keeping his word. Tell him I said that, too."