Crouching Buzzard, Leaping Loon Read Online Free PDF

cart all over creation, and no idea when, because everyone was ignoring him all morning.“
    „You got it.“
    „You're not going to make this easy, are you?“ he said. I was startled, until I realized he was looking up, not at me. „Okay,“ he said, turning back in my direction. „I guess wehave to move all these good people out into the parking lot after all. You got an accurate list of who's supposed to be here?“
    „On the reception desk,“ I said. „There's a copy of the phone list. I already marked the employees who aren't here today, earlier this morning, so I wouldn't put through calls to them; and the sign-in sheet shows the visitors.“
    Half a dozen police officers fanned through the suite to herd everybody out. Just then Liz appeared in the reception area.
    „Chief Burke?“ she said, extending her hand. „I'm Elizabeth Mitchell, the firm's general counsel.“
    The firm. I noticed that, as usual, she avoided uttering the words „Mutant Wizards.“ According to Rob, about every six weeks she'd send another earnest memo suggesting half a dozen logical reasons for changing the company's name. I could have told her this was useless – the only reason Rob had named his company Mutant Wizards was that he thought it sounded cool. If she wanted to change the name, she should forget logical reasons and try to think of an even cooler name.
    „Pleased to meet you,“ the chief said. He looked a little wary. Maybe he expected her to raise some objection to his investigation. Or maybe he just found her a little intimidating – many people did. Not physically – she was only about five feet four. But I'd seen some pretty tough characters, like the guys from the moving company, back down when she went toe to toe with them.
    She was dressed, as usual, in monochrome – a slim, tailored black skirt, an off-white silk blouse, a scarf in tones of gray, black hose, and sensible black pumps. Only her face and hands kept her from looking like a black-and-white movie; and come to think of it, they didn't look real – just badly colorized. But she oozed chic, and I could easily have hated her, except for one thing – she always had some tiny flaw in her outfit. Thesort of thing only another woman would notice. One day she'd been wearing two similar but not identical shoes. Another day one of her earrings had been bent at an odd angle so it looked as if a tiny hand was giving the world the bird. Last Friday, all day, she'd walked around with a spent staple stuck to the back of her calf, inside the pantyhose.
    I wondered if this were deliberate, like the flaws oriental rug makers always included in their works. Since it wasn't the sort of thing I could ask without mortally embarrassing her, I'd probably never know.
    And had she broken the curse today? No, I finally spotted the flaw. Poking up out of her collar was a tag, giving the size, fabric content, and manufacturer of her blouse. It was, I noticed, from an inexpensive catalog I sometimes ordered from. On her, the blouse looked chic, sophisticated, and expensive, just as it would in the catalog. On me, clothes from the same source always looked as if I'd chosen them with only a vague idea what size and cut would suit me, and kept mem largely to avoid the trouble of a trip to the post office to return them.
    She and the chief had begun chatting in what I recognized as the polite, small southern-town version of declaring one's turf and sparring for advantage. I left them to it and took out my cell phone to call Michael.
    „Meg!“ he exclaimed. „Thank God! Hang on a second.“ And then I heard him shout, „Can we take five?“
    „Michael, you're on the set; I'll call back,“ I said.
    „No, it's fine; they need to glue the mermaid queen's tentacles back on anyway. What's going on?“
    I gave him the Cliff's Notes edition of what had happened, as I watched the chief and Liz talking – with the uniformed officer scribbling notes at the chief's elbow. Apparently,