"Who is this Halapay, anyway?" Qwilleran asked.
Odd Bunsen consulted his cigar smoke briefly. "Commercial artist. Runs a big ad agency. Personally worth a few million. Lives in Lost Lake Hills. Beautiful house, big studio where he paints, two swimming pools. Two, did you get that? With water being so scarce, he probably fills one with bourbon."
"Any family?"
"Two or three kids. Gorgeous wife. Halapay owns an island in the Caribbean and a ranch in Oregon and a couple of private planes. Everything money can buy. And he's not tight with his dough. He's a good joe."
"What about these pictures he paints ?"
"Sharp! Real sharp," said Odd. "I've got one hanging in my living room. After I photographed Halapay's wife at a charity ball last fall, he gave me a painting. Couple of kids with curly hair.... Well, I've got to go and eat now. There's a one o'clock assignment on the board."
Arch drained his drink and said to Qwilleran, "Talk to Halapay and size up the photo possibilities, and then we'll try to assign Odd Bunsen. He's our best man. Maybe he could try some color shots. It wouldn't hurt to do this layout in color."
"That pink memo has you straining a bit, hasn't it?"
Qwilleran said. "What's the connection between Halapay and the Daily Fluxion?"
"I'm having another drink," Arch said. "Want another tomato juice?"
Qwilleran let the question drop, but he said, "Just give me one straight answer, Arch. Why are they offering me this art beat? Me, of all people."
"Because that's the way newspapers do things. They assign baseball experts as drama critics and church news writers to the nightclub beat. You know that as well as I do."
Qwilleran nodded and stroked his moustache sadly. Then he said, "What about this art critic you have on the staff? If I take the job, do I work with him? Or her, as the case may be."
"It's a guy," Arch told him. "He writes critical reviews, and you'll be doing straight reporting and personality stories. I don't think there'll be any conflict."
"Does he work in our department?"
"No, he never comes to the office. He does his column at home, puts it on tape, and sends it down by messenger once or twice a week. We have to transcribe it. It's a fat nuisance."
"What keeps him away? Doesn't he like pea green?"
"Don't ask me. That's his arrangement with the front office. He has a neat contract with the Flux."
"What's the fellow like?"
"Aloof. Opinionated. Hard to get along with."
"That's nice. Is he young or old?"
"In between. He lives alone - with a cat, if you can picture that! A lot of people think the cat writes the column, and they may be right."
"Is his stuff any good?"
"He thinks so. And the brass evidently thinks so." Arch shifted around on the bars tool while he weighed his next remark. "There's a rumor that the Flux has the guy heavily insured."
"What's so valuable about an art critic?"
"This one's got that certain magic that newspapers love; he's controversial! His column pulls hundreds of letters a week. No, thousands!"
"What kind of letters?"
"Angry ones. Sugary ones. Hysterical ones. The arty readers hate his guts; the others think he's the greatest, and they get to brawling among themselves. He manages to keep the whole city stirred up. Do you know what our last survey showed? The art page has a bigger readership than the sports section! Now you know and I know that's an unnatural situation."
"You must have a lot of art buffs in this town," Qwilleran said.
"You don't have to like art to enjoy our art column; you just have to like blood."
"But what do they fight about?"
"You'll find out."
"I can understand controversy in sports and politics, but art is art, isn't it?"
"That's what I used to think," said Arch. "When I took over the feature desk, I had this simpleminded notion that art was something precious - for beautiful people who had beautiful thoughts. Man, did I lose that dream in a hurry! Art has gone democratic. In this town it's the greatest fad since canasta, and anybody can play. People buy paintings instead of swimming pools."
Qwilleran chewed the ice in his tomato juice and pondered the mysteries of this beat the Daily Fluxion was offering him. "By the way," he said, "what's the critic's name?"
"George Bonifield Mountclemens."
"Say that again, please?"
"George Bonifield Mountclemens - the Third!"
"That's a stickful! Does he use all three names like that?"
"All three names, all nine syllables, all twenty seven letters plus the numerals! Twice a week we try to fit his byline into a standard column width. It can't be done, except sideways. And he doesn't permit any abbreviations, hyphens, contractions, or amputations!"
Qwilleran gave Arch a close look. "You don't like him much, do you?"
Arch shrugged. "I can take him or leave him. Actually I never see the guy. I just see the artists who come to the office wanting to punch him in the teeth."
"George Bonifield Mountclemens III!" Qwilleran shook his head in amazement.
"Even his name infuriates some of our readers," Arch said. "They want to know who does he think he is."
"Keep talking. I'm beginning to like this job. The boss said it was a nice wholesome beat, and I was afraid I'd be working with a bunch of saints."
"Don't let him kid you. All the artists in this town hate each other, and all the art-lovers take sides. Then everybody plays rough. It's like football only dirtier. Name calling, back-biting, double-crossing - " Arch slid off his barstool. "Come on, let's get a corned beef sandwich."
The blood of several old war-horses that flowed through Qwilleran's veins began to chum a little faster. His moustache almost smiled. "Okay, I'll take it," he said. "I'll take the job."
-2-
It was Qwilleran's first day on the job at the Daily Fluxion. He moved into one of the pea-green desks in the Feature Department and got himself a supply of yellow pencils. He noticed that the pea- green telephone was stenciled with an official reminder: Be Nice to People. He tried the pea-green typewriter by poking out, "The time of many murders is after midnight." Then he telephoned the Fluxion garage to request a staff car for the
trip to Lost Lake Hills.
To reach the fashionable exurb fifteen miles beyond the city limits, Qwilleran drove through complacent suburbs and past winter-brown farms patched with snow. He had plenty of time to think about this interview with Cal Halapay, and he wondered if the Qwilleran Method would still work. In the old days he had been famous for a brotherly approach that put interviewees at ease. It was composed of two parts sympathy, two parts professional curiosity, and one part low blood pressure, and it had won confidences from old ladies, juvenile delinquents, pretty girls, college presidents, and crooks.
Nevertheless, he felt qualms about the Halapay assignment. It had been a long time since he had done an interview, and artists were not his specialty. He suspected they spoke a secret language. On the other hand, Halapay was an advertising executive, and he might hand over a mimeographed release prepared by his public relations office. Qwilleran's moustache shuddered.
It had always been the newsman's habit to compose the opening paragraph of his story in advance. It never worked, but he did it as a limbering up exercise. Now - on the road to Lost Lake Hills - he made a few starts at the Halapay story.
He thought he might say, "When Cal Halapay leaves his plush executive suite at the end of the day, he forgets the cutthroat competition of the advertising rat race and finds relaxation in - " No, that was trite.
He tried again. "A multimillionaire advertising man with a beautiful wife (34-22-32) and two swimming pools (one filled with champagne, according to legend) admits he lives a double life. In painting poignant portraits of children, he escapes - " No, that was sensationalism.
Qwilleran recalled his brief employment with a news, magazine and made another attempt in the crunchy style favored by that publication. "With an ascot folded in the throatline of his custom, made Italian silk sports shirt, the handsome, graying, six-foot-two czar of an advertising empire spends his spare time - "
Qwilleran guessed that a man of Halapay's accomplishments must be that tall, that gray, and that impressive. He would probably have a winter tan as well.
"With a blue foulard ascot accentuating his Caribbean tan - "
Lost Lake Road ended abruptly at a massive iron gate set in a fieldstone wall that looked impregnable and expensive. Qwilleran braked the car and glanced around for signs of a caretaker.
Almost immediately a recorded voice coming from the gatepost said pleasantly, "Please face the pylon at your left and announce your name clearly."
He rolled down the car window and said, "Qwilleran from the Daily Fluxion."
"Thank you," murmured the gatepost. The gate swung open, and the newsman drove into the estate, following a road that meandered through a tall stand of pines. It ended in a severely landscaped winter garden - all pebbles, boulders, and evergreens, with arched bridges crossing small frozen ponds. In this setting, bleak but picturesque, stood a rambling house. It was contemporary in style with gently curving rooflines and opaque glass walls that looked like rice paper. Qwilleran revised his opening line about the Italian sports shirt. Halapay probably knocked around his million- dollar pagoda in a silk kimono.
At the entrance door, which appeared to be carved out of ivory, Qwilleran found something that resembled a doorbell and reached toward it, but before his finger touched the button, the surrounding panel glowed with a blue- green light and chimes could be heard indoors. These were followed by the bark of a dog, or two or three. There was a sharp command, a moment of silent obedience, and a briskly opened door.
"Good morning. I'm Qwilleran from the Daily Fluxion," the newsman said to a curly-haired, pink-faced youth in sweat shirt and dungarees, and before he could add, "Is your father home ?" the young man said amiably, "Come in, sir. Here's your passport." He handed over a fuzzy snapshot of a heavily moustached face peering anxiously from the window of a car.
"That's me!" said Qwilleran in astonishment.
"Taken at the gate before you drove in," the young man said with obvious delight. "It's spooky, isn't it? Here, let me take your topcoat. I hope you don't mind the dogs. They're sort of friendly. They love visitors. This one is the mother. She's four years old. The pups are from her last litter. Do you like blue terriers?"
Qwilleran said, "I - "
"Everyone wants Yorkshires these days, but I like the Kerry blues. They've got beautiful coats, haven't they? Did you have any trouble finding the place? We have a cat, too, but she's pregnant, and she sleeps all the time. I think it's going to snow. I hope so. The skiing has been lousy this year - "
Qwilleran, who prided himself on conducting interviews without making notes, was taking mental inventory of the house: white marble foyer with fish pool and tropical tree probably fourteen feet high. Skylight two stories overhead. Sunken living room carpeted with something like white raccoon. Fireplace in a shiny black wall. Probably onyx. He noticed also that the boy had a hole in his sleeve and was padding around in sweat socks. The flow of chatter had not ceased.
"Would you like to sit in the living room, Mr. Qwilleran? Or do you want to go right to the studio? It's more comfortable in the studio, if you don't mind the smell. Some people are allergic to turpentine. Would you like a Coke or something? Allergies are funny things. I'm allergic to crustaceans. That bums me up, because I'm crazy about lobster - "
Qwilleran was waiting for a chance to say, "Is your father home?" when the young man said, "My secretary tells me you want to do a story on my paintings. Let's go into my studio. Do you want to ask questions, or shall I just talk?"
Qwilleran gulped and said, "Frankly, I was expecting you to be much older - "
"I'm a boy wonder," said Halapay without smiling. "I made my first million before I was twenty one. I'm twenty nine now. I seem to have a genius for making money. Do you believe in genius? It's spooky, really. Here's a picture of me when I was married. My wife looks Oriental, doesn't she? She's out taking an art lesson this morning, but you'll meet her after lunch. We designed the house to go with her looks. Would you like some coffee? I'll stir up the housekeeper if you want coffee. Let's face it, I look boyish and I always will. There's a bar in the studio if you'd rather have a drink."
The studio had a painty aroma, a good deal of clutter, and one vast wall of glass overlooking a white, frozen lake. Halapay flicked a switch, and a filmy shade unfolded from the ceiling to screen out the glare. He touched another control, and doors glided open to reveal a bigger liquor supply than the Press Club had on its backbar.
