WILL AND WAY
383
6.
Next morning Miss Flatface, her eyes reddened by the first
weeping she had done since she left Jim, was scooped from sleep
by a loud knocking.
"Laura," said the man at the door, who wore a grey chester–
field coat and a grey porkpie hat. "Laura?" he said again, turning
the name into a question.
No one had ever called Miss Flatface by her first name in this
place before.
"Miss Laura Flatface?"
Miss Flatface was stunned, speechless.
"Let me innerducc myself." The man handed Miss Flatface
an embossed card.
Inspector
Jug,
Detective,
it read.
By
appointment
only,
"Now let's get this straight, Laura," said the man, all ceremony
seemingly concluded. He had sat down now, but hadn't removed
his hat.
"Who said you could call me by my first name?" cried Miss
Flatface, indignant.
"Now lookee here, Laura," said the man soothingly. "I don't
mean to frighten yer"-he said yer instead of you-"but I've gotten
wind of what yer up to, and it just won't wash. No ma'am, it just
won't wash. Them girls stay here, and the TV sets, too, and you
gotta go. That's what the boss-you know who I mean-called me
in to tell yer."
Provoked by her rejection of last night, Miss Flatface decided
to see if Inspector Jug was proof against her charms.
"Music, Inspector? And perhaps a little wine?"
"Don't mind if I do, ma'am."
"You can call me Laura."
Ignoring the spirits of Eddie Duchin and John Philip Sousa
which whispered hoarsely in her ears, beckoning and forbidding, she
put on one of the latest pop ballads, rapidly climbing to the top of
the Top Forty. The voices of an androgyne quaternity and the
quakings of their electric guitars resounded in a heavenly echo
chamber. Miss Flatface, ever attuned to new things, was entranced.
But Inspector Jug was clearly of the older generation. "Turn off that
