Free Koko by Peter Straub Page A

thousand bucks?”
    Poole nodded.
    “Do you think he meant it?”
    Poole nodded again.
    “I’ll never figure that guy out, I guess,” Conor said, and slammed the bathroom door
     behind him.
    After he pushed his feet into his loafers, Poole went to the telephone and dialed
     Judy’s number. She did not answer, nor did her machine. Poole hung up.
    A few minutes later Beevers called down to inform Michael and Conor that he was offering
     room-service breakfast for everybody in his suite
(en suite)
, commencing in thirty minutes ateleven hundred hours, and that Michael had better get hopping if he wanted more than
     one Bloody Mary.
    “More than one?”
    “I guess you didn’t get the kind of exercise I had last night,” Beevers gloated. “A
     lovely lady, the kind I was telling you about, left about an hour or two ago, and
     I’m as mellow as a month in the country. Michael—try to persuade Pumo that there are
     more important things in the world than his restaurant, will you?” He hung up before
     Poole could respond.
2
    Beevers’ suite had not only a long living room with sliding windows onto a substantial
     balcony but was equipped with a dining room where Michael, Pumo, and Beevers sat at
     a round table laden with plates of food, baskets of rolls, racks of toast, pitchers
     of Bloody Marys, chafing dishes holding sausages, bacon, and eggs Benedict.
    From the couch in the living room where he sat hunched over a cup of black coffee,
     Conor said, “I’ll eat something later.”
    “Mangia, mangia.
Keep your strength up for our trip.” Beevers waggled a fork dripping egg yolk and
     Hollandaise sauce. His black hair gleamed and his eyes shone. His white shirt had
     been fresh from its wrapping when Beevers had rolled up his sleeves and his soberly
     striped bow tie was perfectly knotted. The dark blue suit jacket draped over the back
     of his chair had a broad chalky stripe. He looked as though he expected to be standing
     before the Supreme Court instead of the Vietnam Memorial.
    “You’re still serious about that?” Pumo asked.
    “Aren’t you? Tina, we need you—how could we do this without you?”
    “You’re going to have to try,” Pumo said. “But isn’t the question academic anyhow?”
    “Not to me, it isn’t,” Beevers said. “How about you, Conor? You think I’m just kidding
     around?”
    The three men at the table looked down the length of the living room toward Conor.
     Startled at being the object of everyone’s attention, he straightened himself up.
     “Not if you’re loaning me the air fare, you’re not,” he said. “Kidding, that is.”
    Beevers was now quizzing Michael with his annoyingly clear, annoyingly amused eyes.
     “And you?
Was sagen Sie
, Michael?”
    “Do you ever exactly kid around, Harry?” Michael asked, unwilling to be a counter
     in Harry Beevers’ newest game.
    Beevers was still gleaming at him, waiting for more because he knew he was going to
     get it.
    “I suppose I’m tempted, Harry,” he said, and caught Pumo’s sidelong glance.
3
    “Just out of curiosity,” Harry Beevers leaned forward to say to the cabdriver, “how
     do the four of us strike you? What sort of impression do you have of us as a group?”
    “You serious?” the cabbie asked, and turned to Poole, seated beside him on the front
     seat. “Is this guy serious?”
    Poole nodded, and Beevers said, “Go on. Lay it on the line. I’m curious.”
    The driver looked at Beevers in the mirror, looked back at the road, then glanced
     back over his shoulder at Pumo and Linklater. The driver was an unshaven, blubbery
     man in his mid-fifties. Whenever he made even the smallest movement, Poole caught
     the mingled odors of dried sweat and burning electrical circuits.
    “You guys don’t fit together at all, no way,” the driver said. He looked suspiciously
     over at Poole. “Hey, if this is ‘Candid Camera’ or some shit like that, you can get
     out now.”
    “What do you mean, we don’t