“I didn’t know I was being that predictable.”
“I averaged them. All that crap about the fugu.”
“Well, Steve, you have to admit it’s pretty weird. Eating a fish that can kill you if you look at it sideways and getting a kick out of putting your life in danger.”
“That’s not why they do it.”
“How the Hell do you know why they do anything?”
“I know why you do things, Norm, and I’m telling you it’s got to stop. It’s really got to stop. We’re in mucho trouble with the Japanese-American community as it is. We’re going to be in trouble with the FCC before you know it.”
“No we’re not,” Norm said. “It comes under the First Amendment. You know that.”
“I know that these are perfectly tasteless jokes with no point to them at all. This is not Detroit Japan bashing does not go over big here. If you have to get this out of your system, do a show.”
Do a show, Norm thought. The room was looking a little fuzzy. The room had been looking a little fuzzy all along, of course, but the quality of it had changed now, it had become tinged with red, and for a moment Norm thought he was having a vision of Hell. Hell was just the way he had always been told it, would be, full of red flames and grinning Devils. Then the Devils turned into pink-cheeked troll dolls with neon orange hair.
“Steve?” he said.
“What is it?”
“You know that party I’m supposed to go to, the one for the nuns’ convention?”
“Yeah.”
“Is anybody else from the station going to be there?”
“Nobody else from the station, as far as I know. Henry Hare is going to be there from VTZ. It was in the press release your own people put out.”
“Yeah.”
“You can’t remember anything anymore.”
“Yeah. listen, Steve. Are you Catholic?”
“Nope. I think my grandparents were Lutheran. My parents weren’t anything in particular.”
“I’m Catholic.”
“I know.”
“I just keep thinking about it, you know. A big room full of nuns like that. Thousands of nuns all in the same place.”
“So what?”
“So nuns are trouble,” Norman Kevic said. “Nuns have always been trouble. They’re bad luck if they aren’t anything else, and you can’t control them. And I keep thinking—you know who else is going to be at that party?”
“No.”
“Gregor Demarkian. The name mean anything to you?”
Steve Harald hesitated. Norm waited expectantly. He had always suspected Steve of being functionally oblivious—of paying no attention to anything that didn’t relate directly to his job at the station—and now Norm was sure of it.
“Gregor Demarkian,” Norm said, “is the guy who does murders. The one the Philadelphia Inquirer calls ‘the Armenian-American Hercule Poirot’ ”
“Oh,” Steve said.
“Never mind,” Norm said. “But I keep thinking about it, if you know what I mean. I keep thinking about the world’s most famous consultant on murder being right there in the middle of all those nuns, and what we could do with that I hate nuns.”
“You’ve said that,” Steve said.
Actually he hadn’t, but he’d probably implied it, so Norm decided to let it go. The sound of stiletto heels told him that Julia was coming back. He sat up a little on the couch and got ready to throw a hurricane of orange juice down his throat.
“There was a murder in the Motherhouse of their convent a little while ago,” Norm said musingly. “I remember reading about it. Demarkian was in on it.”
“On the murder?”
“On the investigation. I wonder what we could make of it.”
“Don’t make anything of it,” Steve said. “You’re in enough hot water with the Japanese. All you have to do is insult Henry’s wife’s alma mater or her best-remembered nun teacher or what the Hell. You may be part-owner of the station, but Henry is still chairman of the board.”
And Henry’s wife is a little slut with an appetite for nymphomania, Norm thought but he didn’t say it, because it wouldn’t have come as news to anybody and there was no point. Besides, Julia really was there, right behind Steve, carrying a plastic tray from the cafeteria. The tray was covered with glasses of juice and cups of coffee and little bowls full of sugar and creamer. Julia hadn’t been taking any chances.
Steve stood aside to let Julia through. Norm held out his hands for the tray.
“I hate nuns,” Norm said. “I hate them more than I hate the Japanese. At least the Japanese don’t think they’ve got a pipeline right up through the stratosphere to God.”