Now, then, Gloster said, I take it that disposes of the question of the dog. You may step aside, Miss Monterrey. Chapter 38 Nothing. A tale nicely told. I was using up my allotment faster than usual. I am not bound that way, Stone said. Sit by the fire and drink your bourbon. Mason opened his cigarette case and he and Drake lit up. He sat at one end of the table and Corsing and I sat on either side of him. I took out my tin box and started to roll a cigarette. The Candidate got up, went over to his desk, and came back with an ashtray that he slid across the table to me. I thanked him. You tried them to make certain they worked? She took the kids over to the park. With anybody, with everybody. I want you to be a thorn in the flesh, a monkey wrench in the machinery. I want you to be the nastiest, most technical, most conservative old fuddyduddy in the world. She must have gotten that from someone else, the police perhaps. What name would he use with her? Yes. Ear to ear. Thats how throats are cut. His throat was cut from ear to ear. I had read it many times, but I couldnt remember where. Max Quanes throat had been cut, but whoever had done it must not have been much of a reader, because he hadn’t bothered about ear to ear. There was a deep, short slashon each side of Quane’s throat. The slashes had reached the big arteries. There was a lot of blood on Quane, and he had left a trail of it on the green rug as he had tried to learn how to crawl all over again and had made a yard before he had quit trying and died. Poppy? He went on with his tale, Quane only half listening now because by his own count this would be the eighth time that hed heard it. Murfin told how he and I had flown out of New Orleans about two in the morning, both of us more than a little drunk, and still nowhere near sober when we landed at Dulles at six, and how Id bought a copy of theWashington Post and read the ad and then had insisted that he drive me all the way out here, although it really wasnt much more than half an hour from Dulles. From Washington it was an hour. Often a little more. He lumbered through his tasks. His job right now was to help analyze a slice of risk on a deal between two corporate titans, on which Cowl and Comely was advising the buyer. On the other side was the mobilized army of venerable Morgan Stanley. Both clients wanted this spin-off of a subsidiary in a management-led buyout to be completed, so the dealmaking was fairly amicable. It was what was known in the business as ashit sandwich. A radio turned low vibrated with the sounds of a baseball game. No wonder he hadnt been interested when Id walked in. This year the playoffs for the World Series were as exciting as any in the last decade. Im not quite sure, I said and thats as far as I would go even though he was still looking at me as if he expected something more, something wise perhaps, or even profound. But I had run out of wisdom and profundity nearly four years before, so instead I said, Youre going to go forit again, aren’t you? In seventy-eight?.