A Taste for Picasso.

He was there when I opened the door. "Headley!" I scowled at him for a count of five. "So what the hell do you want?" I growled pugnaciously.

"Oh now, don't be ungracious, there's a good fellow, I'd rather like to have a word."

I scowled at him a moment longer. "Well, you'd better come in then." I said, as ungraciously as possible and leaving him to close the door I strode off down the hall to the living room. He could find his own goddamn way.

Headley was very good at the business of finding the way, his own and other peoples' too. He had found mine in Hong Kong ten years ago which resulted in me getting free porridge for five well-behaved years.

But he was magnanimous about it. He didn't hold any grudge against me.

He eased his gangling willowy body cautiously into my living room, casting a wary eye over the frugal furnishings. Mainly creaky cane furniture sitting on an old but nevertheless, luxurious Caucasian rug.

"Very nice room Lucius, still the taste for Spartan luxury." He coiled himself down into one of the armchairs. "And I suppose everything is wired."

He supposed right, though I didn't trouble myself to reply. There wasn't a spot in the house that I hadn't covered. With my gear, I could pick up a field mouse farting in the attic. Or I could blast him with Beethoven. Sound was my life, the way I made my living; none of his affair.

"I'm going to have some mint tea." I said. "Do you want some.... It's all there is?"

"In that case, dear chap, let us share the tea by all means." His cold smile was full of charitable understanding. The stupid twit thought I was broke.

This was only another of Headley's many upper-crust mannerisms that were hard to take, along with the unflappable attitude and the constant 'dear chapping' which I found insufferably patronizing. But with any luck, I thought, I might shake some of it out of him today.

We sat around a bamboo table and drank the tea. "Well!" I said. "What is it?"

He laced his fingers together and fixed me with a hard stare. His voice, a hollow booming, sounded like a not too distant foghorn warning. "Let us not fool about, Lucius, you know I've come about Petra. I know she's been here. I should like to know where she is now?"

I let her answer by pressing the remote tape control unit I had concealed in my pocket.

"His name's really Alonzo Gondolpho!" her voice, vibrant with life, chuckled into the room, making even the Boston accent sound melodious. "It's no wonder he likes people to use his surname. What a mouthful. He must hate them.....told me his Christian names were Alun George....and in school, they called him the Head....he made me scream....I'll bet he was a wimp then too....actually cried like a baby when I said I was leaving....yech!....crybabies!"

He didn't seem too bothered about Petra's remarks.

"I can see that you expected me, Lucius. That's quite a set-up you've got there, my goodness, I could almost see her then and let me see now....I'd guess she was wearing....her....wraparound denim skirt, umnn....a tea-shirt under that blue-green sweater....ahhh....boots of some kind and those tatty green tights with the darned knees."

"I'd have to give you full marks," I replied sourly. "If it was any sort of contest. But apart from minor changes, when do you remember her ever wearing anything else?"

He gave me the full treatment of his superior knowing smile. "I remember." He said as if that was enough. Then it was back to business. "Tell me where she is now?"