“No.”
“What is?”
She looked furtively around. “I’m not supposed to tell anybody,” she said.
“’To tell anybody what?”
“There aren’t any bugs in this place, are there, Bern?”
“Just the usual roaches and silverfish. What’s the problem, Carolyn?”
“The problem is my pussy’s been snatched.”
“Huh?”
“Oh, God,” she said. “My kid’s been catnapped.”
“Your kid’s been-Carolyn, you don’t have any kids. How much did you have to drink, anyway? Before you got here?”
“Shit on toast,” she said, loud. “Will you just listen to me? Please? It’s Archie.”
“Archie?”
She nodded. “Archie,” she said. “They’ve kidnapped Archie Goodwin.”
CHAPTER Four
“The cat,” I said.
“Right.”
“Archie the cat. Your Burmese cat. That Archie.”
“Of course, Bern. Who else?”
“You said Archie Goodwin, and the first thing I thought-”
“That’s his full name, Bern.”
“I know that.”
“I didn’t mean Archie Goodwin the person, Bern, because he’s a character in the Nero Wolfe stories, and the only way he could have been kidnapped would be in a book, and if that happened I wouldn’t run up here in the middle of the night and carry on about it. You want to know the truth, Bern, I think you need a drink more than I do, which is saying something.”
“I think you’re right,” I said. “I’ll be back in a minute.”
It was more like five. I walked down the hall past my friend Mrs. Hesch’s apartment to Mrs. Seidel’s. Mrs. Seidel was visiting family in Shaker Heights, according to Mrs. Hesch. I rang her bell for safety’s sake, then let myself into her apartment. (She’d gone off without double-locking her door, so all I had to do was loid the springlock with a strip of plastic. Someone, I thought, would have to talk to Mrs. Seidel about that.)
I came back from there with a mostly full bottle of Canadian Club. I poured drinks for both of us. Carolyn had hers swallowed before I had the cap back on the bottle.