Goodwin. Since, as you say, the work will be done by him, I won't be needed, even for the decision whether to take the job." He marched across to the door to the hall and was gone, but not, as I knew, to make a phone call. Not wanting to refuse to take money, but not caring to shoulder the blame for spoiling my weekend for the sake of a measly grand, he was putting it up to me. As for him, he would go to the kitchen, open a bottle of beer, and make suggestions to Fritz about preparations for lunch. As for me, I was stuck. If I shooed Lewent out it would be months before I could again open my trap to ride Wolfe for turning down jobs. So I got the little stack which the little man had put on Wolfe's desk, counted it, and found that it was twenty fifties. "Okay," I told him, "I'll give you a receipt. First I think our approach to Huck will stand some discussion. Do you agree?" He did, and I sat, and we discussed. 14 2 Lewent's father's house of granite, on Sixtyninth Street between Fifth and Madison, had apparently not had its face washed since little Herman had been born there back in the nineteenth century, but inside there had unquestionably been changes. For one thing, the self-service elevator was so modern and so large that I guessed it had been installed since the present owner had been condemned to a wheelchair on account of his bum arteries.

Though Lewent had insisted that we should delay the operation until Theodore Huck's lunch hour was past, and therefore it was after two o'clock when we arrived and were let in by a female viking who could have carried Herman around in her apron, I was still nursing the hope that I might earn the grand that day and evening and have my weekend. So when the viqueen had taken our hats I wasted no time for a glance at the luxuries of the big entrance 15 hall as Lewent led the way to the elevator. We left it one flight up and turned right down the hall, which was some narrower but longer than the one downstairs. I was surprised at the thickness of the rugs in a mansion whose master did all his moving in a wheelchair.