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.” Doug tried to clarify the real reason why he visited the museum, but the managers were already massaging the story so that it added to the Raffles mystique.The Truth Must Be Told.There was an awkward moment when it was learned that Doug wasn’t a guest at the hotel, but Doug helped them through by saying that he was staying with friends.A final round of photographs, handshakes, and re-enactments of the settling of the bill concluded with Doug being handed a gift certificate for dinner at a Raffles restaurant, a keychain, and a promise that the next time Doug visited Singapore, his photograph (black and white) would be hanging on these very walls.On the subway, which was colder than the air-conditioned museum, Doug unraveled the twine, slipping his left hand in the glove and fishing out the ball with his thumb and first two fingers of his right hand.The glove felt awkward, bent out of shape by years of misalignment, and it was stiff and difficult to close.He pounded his fist into the pocket of the glove, trying to work out the leather cavity created by the ball.The ball itself was more gray than white and slightly misshapen, like it had been smacked out of the park a few too many times.The red stitching was loose and uneven but looked no different from the old American League balls on the wall at a Friday’s.As the subway raced along the dark tunnels, Doug sat tossing the ball into the glove.He waited for some cosmic connection, some spiritual link to his long dead family member, but nothing came, just a sense that he was no closer to the solution than he was when he first looked in that cardboard box at Edna’s, a million years ago.Chapter 30Two pink While You Were Out notes were taped to his hotel room door.ZRZ Publishing employees enjoyed both casual dress Fridays and a three p.m.start to the weekend, but someone had made sure his messages were delivered.The first let Doug know that Edna had called at eleven thirty a.m.Two checked boxes clarified that she was returning his call and that she wanted him to call back at his earliest convenience.In the space below was Edna’s phone number, just in case he had forgotten, and an extra note stating that there was a twelve-hour time difference between Singapore and Toronto.Doug wondered if that gentle reminder was from the hotel staff or from Edna.The second note was from Aisha.The first checked box noted that she had called, the second that she wanted to see him.The note said that she called at one p.m.and that she was staying in Room 120 at Raffles.There was nothing about death threats or stealthy assassins.Doug lay on the bed, thinking about the two women in his life.He owed Edna more than an explanation of how he was spending her money.And he still had nothing to show for it.Yeah, it was her money and she could spend it any way she wanted, including sending an unemployed bottle filler on an old-fashioned snark hunt, but that part of him that was raised to work hard and do his best made him wish he’d have something important to say.Doug decided to wait to call her back until after he got the police report, just in case, by some act of God, something would jump out at him.He had known since Morocco that he didn’t really care about his uncle’s murder; the guy was a thief, a killer, and who knows what else, and he ran with a rough crowd.Every job has its hazards.And he also knew he’d never find the diamond.Things like that don’t just turn up.But he also knew he wanted to solve the mystery, not for Edna and certainly not for Uncle Russ.He wanted to solve it for himself.Before this summer he’d done nothing, seen nothing, accomplished nothing that a thousand other guys from Pottsville hadn’t already done.After Singapore he’d go home, apologize to Edna, and within a month be back in the rut he climbed out of when he climbed aboard that first flight out of central Pennsylvania.This was it, and he knew it.Lose now—and that seemed all but guaranteed—it would set the pace for the rest of his life.But there was always Aisha.He reread the note and tried to read between lines that weren’t even there.She must have gotten the message he was finally able to leave with the front desk, but she sure took her time calling back.What was it about her? She was self-absorbed, superficial, conceited, and condescending and she knew just what to say to make a guy feel like a complete idiot.What did he see in her, anyway?That’s a stupid question, he thought [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]