There was nowhere to sit down. All the chairs were covered with papers, or worse. Gregor tried perching himself on the arm of something that looked a little fragile, but might do. John Jackman continued to stand. DeAnna stared at the phone as if she were willing it to ring.
“Wars,” she said. “People ought to give up having wars. They’re a damned nuisance.”
“That’s a thought,” Gregor said blandly. “Would you mind answering a few questions for us? Right now? We realize this is a little spur of the moment, and you might be busy—”
“Oh, I’m busy enough,” DeAnna said, “but I’m not going anywhere. I have to wait for that idiot to call back. And he will call back. He always does. What do you want to know? I don’t have an alibi.”
“An alibi isn’t necessary at the moment,” Gregor said. “Do you know anything about Maximillian Dey’s having had his pocket picked—”
“Well, of course I know about that,” DeAnna interrupted. “Everybody knows about that. He went on and on about it.”
“Good,” Gregor told her. “Now. When did it happen?”
“As he was getting off the subway when he was coming down to meet the rest of us so we could all take off for Philadelphia. We all came down in two cars.”
“Limousines?”
“Of course limousines.”
“Fine. So Max got his pocket picked. It was just his wallet that was missing? Nothing else?”
“Well,” DeAnna said, “with Max, his wallet would have been enough. He kept his life in there. Pictures from back in Portugal. A fake ID saying he was twenty-one so he could drink. Everything.”
“Everything,” Gregor repeated. “Fine. Max was an immigrant, am I correct?”
“Yes, of course. From Portugal.”
“He’d been in this country how long?”
“I don’t know. A little more than a year, I think, but don’t quote me. It’s just a guess.”
“You never asked him?”
“Well, Max didn’t have what you’d call a position of trust,” DeAnna said. “And we don’t ask those kinds of questions. Gradon Cable Systems does that. It’s just that we wouldn’t mind.”
“Wouldn’t mind what?”
“Wouldn’t mind that his English was a little sketchy and that he didn’t know enough about the city to really operate,” DeAnna said. “Lotte is always taking on stray kittens, if you know what I mean. Immigrants, especially, because she was an immigrant. But it isn’t only immigrants. We have about six inner-city high school kids as interns on the show every summer. Lotte is like that.”
“That’s very commendable, but that’s not exactly what I’m getting at,” Gregor said. “About the contents of this wallet. Do you know what else might have been in there besides a fake ID and some family pictures from Portugal?”
“Money,” DeAnna said.
“What about his green card? He did have a green card? He wasn’t a citizen yet?”
“He wasn’t a citizen yet,” DeAnna said, “and he definitely lost his green card. He went on and on about it. About how difficult it was going to be to replace.”
“That was the day before yesterday?”
“Yes.”
“You’re sure?”
“Of course I’m sure, Mr. Demarkian. What are you getting at?”
“Well,” Gregor said, “when I arrived here yesterday morning, I walked into Studio C to find Max lifting a chair into the air and the contents of his pockets falling on the floor. I picked up a number of the things he dropped and gave them back to him. One of those things was a green card.”
“It was?” DeAnna looked confused. “Maybe he was wrong, then. Maybe he had it someplace else and didn’t realize it, and then he found it later.”
“Maybe he did,” Gregor conceded, although he didn’t believe it for a minute. “What about after he left me? I know we went over this yesterday—”
“And over it and over it.” DeAnna was irritated. “I can’t tell you anymore than I already have told you. He brought the chair downstairs and put it in the truck. We know that because the chair was in the truck and Prescott saw him at the truck. After that we just don’t know.”
“That’s right,” Gregor said. “We don’t know. Between yesterday and today you haven’t remembered anything else on this score? Nobody has come to you and said, oh, by the way, I forgot, but—”
“No,” DeAnna said. “There’s been nothing like that.”