ment, talking to
Dorothea.

"Dorothea," he muttered. "You filched my notebook."

That didn't sound very effective. And besides, it wasn't really his
notebook. He tried again.

"Dorothea, you pinched your brother's notebook."

Now, for some reason, it sounded like something covered by the Vice
Squad. It sounded terrible. But there were other ways of saying the
same thing.

"Dorothea," he muttered, "you borrowed your brother's notebook."

That was too patronizing. Malone told himself that he sounded like a
character straight out of 3-D screens, and settled himself gamely for
another try.

"Dorothea, you _have_ your brother's notebook."

To which the obvious answer was, "Yes, I do, and so what?"

Or possibly, "How do you know?"

And Malone thought about answering that one. "Queen Elizabeth told
me," was the literal truth, but somehow it didn't sound like it. And
he couldn't find another answer to give the girl.

"Dorothea," he said, and a voice from nowhere added:

"Will you have another drink?"

"Damn it," Malone exploded, "that's not the question. Drinks have
nothing to do with notebooks. It's notebooks I'm after. Can't you
understand..." Belatedly, he looked up.

There was Ray, the barman. "Oh," he said.

"I just came over," Ray said. "And I figured if you couldn't find your
notebook, maybe you'd like a drink. So long as you're here."

"Ray," Malone said with feeling, "you are an eminently reasonable
fellow. I accept your solution. Nay, more. I endorse your solution.
Wholeheartedly."

Ray went off to mix, and Malone stared after him happily. This was
really a nice place, he reflected; almost as nice as the City Hall Bar
in Chicago, where he'd gone long ago with his father.

But he tore his mind away from the happy past, and concentrated
instead on the miserable present. He decided for the last time that he
was not going to ask Dorothea for the book--not just yet, anyhow.
After all, it wasn't as if he needed the book; he knew his own name,
and he knew Lynch's name, and he knew the names on the second page.
And he didn't see any particular need for a picture of a red Cadillac,
no matter how nicely colored it was.

So, he asked himself, why embarrass everybody by trying to get it
back?

Of course, it _was_ technically a crime to pick pockets, and that went
double or triple for the pockets of FBI agents. But Malone told
himself that he didn't feel like pressing charges, anyhow. And Dorothy
probab