Before lunch, Wolfe gave me enough instructions for a magazine article on mystic etiquette: be polite, don’t eat, don’t drink, don’t laugh, and on, and on, and on.  By the time he was finished, Saul had arrived and we all retired to the dining room.  Over lunch---Maine clam cakes---the three of us discussed whether the ’39 World’s Fair had been a pointless exercise or, if not, why not.  It’s one of those debates where it’s easy to find three legitimate sides, so it carried us neatly through to the blueberry grunt.

Because I wanted a little chat with Saul before we arrived at Mansion De Blieu, we took the roadster.  Last year Wolfe gave me the green light to pick out new cars, and I had opted for a Markham Scout for my personal transportation.  The day was fine, and I had the windows down.  Saul pulled his old cap out of a pocket and put it on before he asked, “How are you holding up?”

“Not too bad, although if I had time to stop and think, it might be another story.  Can you give me some background on what we’re up against? Wolfe’s imitating the Great Stone Face, again.”

Saul smiled, but said, “He may not want to cramp your intuition.  I understand you’re batting close to a thousand on this case.”

I snorted.  “Yeah, that will be a big help, the first time I get something wrong.”

“A point,” Saul conceded, and settled back a little more in his seat.  I eased around the corner onto Park and nodded graciously at a jay-walker who’d made a rude gesture.  Saul tucked his chin down into his collar and said, “Okay, the De Blieus are like one of those families of hucksters who go from town to town grifting the citizenry with fake roofing or bogus furnace inspections.  In the De Blieus’ case, though, they trade phony numinous experiences for legitimate gifts, like your intuition or creativity.”

“Huh.  Swap your muse for a nice Technicolor apparition?”

“Yup.  Still, in one way, we’re lucky.  They’ve come down in the world.  Used to be, you couldn’t take them on without bringing along the equivalent of a tank brigade.  Now, if you’re careful and have something scary to back you up, you’re okay.  It’s not that they won’t try to steal from you, but if you’re honest and don’t Deal, it’s hard for them.”

“We provide the care and Wolfe provides the scare.”

“That’s the plan, all right.  What you have to keep reminding yourself of, and it’s easier to forget than you’d think when you’re inside their household, is that they’re fake.  Keep telling yourself that it’s a mitt camp at a carnival, in the same way that the high-powered businessmen you two deal with, underneath their fancy suits, are just like the guys who own discount furniture stores in north Jersey.”

“No dealing today.  Wolfe says he gave De Blieu his token before either of them came to this country.  It’s how De Blieu got away from his relatives.  By their rules, the change in tokens makes him Wolfe’s kin, not their own.  Wolfe wouldn’t say what he got in return for the favor.”

“Probably a good story there,” Saul said, and turned his head to watch a pretty blond in a pale-blue chiffon slip dress cross the street in front of us.  He may have liked her looks, or he may have noticed something suspicious about her, but if he saw her again in five years, he'd recognize her.  "So, it means his family is out of their home territory and took something they didn’t pay for.  That leaves them wide open.  They must want your boy back awfully bad.  It’ll make our job easier, nothing but a collection.”  He grinned, wrinkling his small face more than usual.  “I never thought I’d live to see the day I was a collections man.”

There is an office building in Manhattan that you pass without noticing and then wince five minutes later.  Fellow residents will know the one I mean.  It’s all in the decorative elements.  Until that day I’d thought the designer had been drummed out of the union, because I’d never seen another building with his special touch.  However, I’d never been inside this particular apartment house before.  The exterior was no different from the others on the block, but the murals, moldings and statues in the lobby were another story.

Saul looked around.  “Well, render me in Mayan Deco and offer me up for sacrifice.”

“Charming, perfectly charming.  I think the architect went on to decorate nightclubs downtown, right after he finished this job.”

Doormen and attendants often ignore strangers who act like they know where they’re doing.  While we were talking, we headed for the elevator.  It was one of the new automatic jobs.  There was a key for the penthouse suite, but Saul Panzer, like a boy scout, is always prepared.  He took out a key-case, selected a key, used it, pushed the button for the penthouse, and up we went. 

There is a feeling that I always get when I know I’m heading into danger but have never grown to like.  The air seemed thin and the world slowed down.  I shifted Wolfe’s gun from my shoulder holster into my pocket.  The elevator door opened onto a terrace, and we walked past the security announcer without ringing.  Vegetation, mostly dead except for some spiky vines with blood-red berries, trailed up the arbor around us, which at least kept us from being spotted through the windows.  The door had an adorable little garden ornament hung on it:  a plaster face, screaming. 

Saul and I exchanged looks, and I reached out and grasped the door knob.  My skin seemed to ripple, and I could feel a line of gentle heat, like the touch of Wolfe’s fingers, move down my arm to the knob.  I turned it, the door opened, and we entered the foyer.

If I ever have a vine-covered cottage of my own, the odds against which seem to be increasing daily, I’m clear on one principle of decorating.  Triangular foyers with red-brown leather walls and pointy, wrought-iron sculptures are right out, and so is furniture that fights back.  True, I might opt for wall-to-wall carpeting, but not in black.  After one quick survey, I ignored the surroundings in favor of the two interior doors.  Before I could check them, Saul coursed silently past me to lay his hand on each door in turn, and then gestured for me to open one.

The corridor behind it was lined with nothing but doors, on both sides, for its entire twenty foot length.  Inside, the perspective was wrong, and none of the angles came together at ninety degrees.  We closed the foyer door behind us, and I let Saul do his hand trick while I watched for unpleasant strangers.  He pointed to one of the doors on the left, and I listened.  You could hear beyond it, very faintly, the sound of voices.  This time, when I grabbed the doorknob, the flare of heat was intense.  For a second, flecks of purple edged the outline of my hand.  I opened the door and Saul and I walked into the room.

There were five De Blieus in it, if you counted Gilles, who was taped onto the wall across from us.  The strips of overlapping tape covering him had stains along the edges that were the same red-brown color as the foyer walls, but he was twitching, so I guessed he was still alive.  Bette, looking sullen, sat cross-legged on the floor next to a blocky divan whose half-dressed male occupant was slowly caressing her throat.  He glanced up when we came in, but didn’t stop either absent-mindedly fondling Bette with one hand or sorting through what I hoped was a manicure kit with the other.  He had, I noticed, the remnants of an extra large pack of sealing tape stacked by him.  The couple on the leather couch by the window also ignored us.  The man, middle-aged and wearing black linen trousers too tight for him, was frowning and searching through a pile of small bones on the coffee table.  The woman, also middle aged, and dressed in a wrap-around skirt, about fifty pounds of ugly jewelry and a petulant expression, was staring out through the windows. 

“Hello,” I said, and produced a charming smile.  Saul shut the door quietly behind us.  “We’ve come for Mr.  Wolfe’s token.”

“I don’t understand,” the woman on the couch said.  She glanced around vaguely, as if expecting an explanation to drop from the ceiling.  Up on the wall, Gilles made a muffled noise.  “Did you come to Deal with us? Who are you?”

“Now, now,” I said, reprovingly.  “No Deals, no names.  That token is from Mr.  Nero Wolfe, and it belongs to him.  We’d like it back, please.”

The man behind Bette kissed her shoulder, and she turned to examine him as if he were geometry homework.  Black Linen frowned, picked up one of his bones and snapped it between his fingers.  The walls shimmered slightly, as if we were under water.

I checked my wristwatch.  “The token? Sorry to rush, but we’re on a schedule.”  They all examined me, as if seeking a way in, except for Bette, whose eyes flicked to Gilles and then away.  The room seemed to be darkening.

Black Linen selected another bone and pointed it at me.  “Go away,” he said, and then shifted his attention to Saul.  “What are you doing here?”  The bone bent as his fingers tightened.

“Why shouldn’t I be here?” Saul asked.  “You’re a long way from home, after all.”  He stepped forward and plucked the bone away from the man, cupped his hands around it, blew into his hands, and then dusted them off.  The bone had crumbled.  Bette looked away, smirking at the red and black sludge that was slowly starting to ooze out from the shadows on the walls.

I sighed, crossed the room, and ripped the tape from Gilles’ mouth.  “Token,” I said to him, and his bloody tongue lolled out.  I shook my head and got out my pocketknife.

“No,” the older woman said, sharply.  Her gaze was tracking Saul as he wandered around the room.

“No?  We’d like the token back, then, please.”

Saul suddenly stomped down hard on the far side of the coffee table and the other end rose up and caught Black Linen beneath the chin.  The bones on it scattered across the carpeting.

“We don’t have the token,” the woman said.  She turned to watch, as Bette’s companion stood up too abruptly and then put one hand out to steady himself against the nearest wall.  He snatched it away, shook his hand, and cursed like he’d been burned.  Bette herself laughed, genuinely amused. 

“What a creep show.  We’re wasting time,” I said to Saul.  He shrugged, and I thought I heard a familiar grunt of agreement from behind me.  On an impulse, I stuck both forefingers into my mouth, and whistled.

Within his glue and fabric web, Gilles convulsed, gagged, and spat something out of his mouth.  I caught it on the fly.  A metal ring, covered in---I squashed an urge to drop it in disgust, and shoved it into my breast pocket, into my handkerchief, instead. 

“Sorry to disturb you,” I said.  “We’ll be going now.”  I could feel the goose-flesh, and hoped it wasn’t obvious.  Saul opened the door, I tipped my hat in farewell, and we left.  None of the De Blieu clan, except for Gilles who was still coughing, moved a muscle as we departed.  But now the whole room was rippling as if was underwater, and bits of it were dissolving away.  Behind it was---no, I don’t like remembering that. 

Out in the corridor, I shuddered hard like a dog getting rid of water before I followed Saul out the door to the terrace.  No one followed us.  Even so, all the way down in the elevator and out through the lobby I expected some attack.  Nothing happened, though, until we were in the roadster and well down Park.

We had stopped at a light, and I fished out my handkerchief to take a glance at the ring.  It was only a pitted band of some dark metal, probably iron, with a piece of rock mounted in it, nothing expensive.  I stuffed it back into my pocket and said to Saul, “That was a fake?  Who the hell would want to buy into that?”

“Hey, you called it: it’s a creep show.  Or, even better, call it a creep-joint grift.  A very popular con, right now, because a lot of folks are desperate to believe that the world has worse things in it than what humans come up with on their own.  Hollywood Satanists, vampires, mysterious oriental fiends, undying Jack the Ripper types:  all bull, but it scratches an itch.”

“Indeed,” I said, and then thumped my fist against the steering wheel in exasperation.  When I start quoting Wolfe without meaning to, my tension is showing. 

The light changed, but we didn’t move.  The way was blocked by a tight-packed mass of cars that hadn't made the light from the cross-street.  I craned my neck to see what was holding up the parade, and saw a twisting, red-brown vapor, like a puff of smoke, drifting lazily towards us, from car top to car top.  It was pulling into itself, forming something unpleasantly familiar, a human shape glued together from old leather, rope, and clotted blood.

“Lovin' babe,” Saul said, and his hand dove into his jacket pocket.  Mine moved faster.  I had Hewitt’s tooth out and aloft before Saul got whatever it was disentangled.  When it hit the creature mid-air a few cars away from us, the tooth fell to the pavement as if an invisible hand had slapped it down, and the creature was gone.  The traffic shifted a little, and I lost sight of the tooth as a bakery delivery truck rolled over it and stopped.

“I better get that,” Saul said, “Mr.  Hewitt will probably want his molar back some day.  I’ll call and let you know how it goes.”  He got out of the roadster before I could say anything.  The driver of the car in the next lane yelled after him, but Saul eeled between two taxis and was gone.  The light changed, changed again, and the knot of traffic managed to untie itself.  I looked for him as I eased across the intersection, but didn’t see him.  I did notice, though, that the bakery truck was about to make the snarl worse.  It was limping to the curb with a flat.  One of its front tires seemed to have melted.