to be a miracle if he got out of this restaurant without breaking Don Elkham’s neck.
TWO
1
T HERE IS A POINT in the progress of celebrity when a man goes from being famous on occasion—when he has a new book published; when the law firm or the government agency he works for takes on a particularly important case—to being famous all the time. Gregor Demarkian had passed that point somewhere in the middle of investigating a murder at a convention of nuns. At least, he had passed that point in Philadelphia. It was possible that in New York or Los Angeles, he would be able to go for weeks at a time without anyone calling him up to ask for his favorite recipe for chocolate fudge brownies or his favorite prediction for who would win the World Series. Gregor didn’t know, because he hadn’t been out of Philadelphia since last Christmas, when he and Bennis had taken Tibor on a short “vacation.” Even then, his reputation had been pushing the line. It was now impossible for him to go anywhere where there had been the smallest amount of public violence without the local papers speculating that he had been called in to “consult.” He was beginning to think there wasn’t a town in America that didn’t have at least one unsolved, nonroutine murder on its police blotter, just waiting for the ministrations of the man the Philadelphia Inquirer had dubbed “the Armenian-American Hercule Poirot.” In Philadelphia the situation was worse, because the situation was less focused. The Philadelphia Inquirer had stopped expecting Gregor to leap into the middle of any case that took its fancy. If Gregor didn’t say he was working on a solution to a murder, The Inquirer left it to the Philadelphia police. What The Inquirer did do was publish any picture of Gregor it could find—and there were a lot of them, because once the word was out that The Inquirer was paying, there were dozens of paparazzi manqué willing to pop their flash bulbs and bring back the trophy. Over the last few months, The Inquirer had published pictures of Gregor coming out of a restaurant, going into three different branches of the public library, and running to catch a bus. When there was the reasonable resemblance of an excuse, the paper got more elaborate. When Gregor had volunteered (as a result of Bennis’s threat that she’d play Axl Rose tapes in his ear if he refused) to serve as a draw at the annual Armenian Street Festival to benefit the Society for a Free Armenia, The Inquirer had published a solid page of pictures of Gregor getting pies thrown at his face. Philadelphia magazine had gone one better. It had published a full-page, full-color print of Gregor after a pie had caught him square on the nose. That was the same issue of Philadelphia that had contained the information that Gregor’s favorite food was Sara Lee’s chocolate fudge cake. This did not happen to be true—Gregor didn’t like packaged cake of any kind, and if he had he wouldn’t have admitted it; Lida Arkmanian would have murdered him—but it resulted in exactly 4,678 Sara Lee fudge cakes being delivered to Gregor’s door, six by messenger.
The nonsensical pictures of Gregor published in The Inquirer appeared on what used to be called the “Society Page” and was now called “Lifestyles,” and it was a picture from the “Lifestyles” page that was tacked to the bulletin board just behind the cash register at Ohanian’s Middle Eastern Food Store when Gregor came in after his lunch with Don Elkham. Actually, it was well after. Lunch had been predictably terrible, and Gregor had felt the need to walk it off. He’d done some shopping and some reading at the library and some wandering around near the historic monuments before deciding it was time to get home. Now it was dark and wet and cold and he was carrying an unwieldy package full of new ties in tie boxes. Why they couldn’t just fold ties into little lumps and put them in a bag was beyond him. The picture on
TWO
1
T HERE IS A POINT in the progress of celebrity when a man goes from being famous on occasion—when he has a new book published; when the law firm or the government agency he works for takes on a particularly important case—to being famous all the time. Gregor Demarkian had passed that point somewhere in the middle of investigating a murder at a convention of nuns. At least, he had passed that point in Philadelphia. It was possible that in New York or Los Angeles, he would be able to go for weeks at a time without anyone calling him up to ask for his favorite recipe for chocolate fudge brownies or his favorite prediction for who would win the World Series. Gregor didn’t know, because he hadn’t been out of Philadelphia since last Christmas, when he and Bennis had taken Tibor on a short “vacation.” Even then, his reputation had been pushing the line. It was now impossible for him to go anywhere where there had been the smallest amount of public violence without the local papers speculating that he had been called in to “consult.” He was beginning to think there wasn’t a town in America that didn’t have at least one unsolved, nonroutine murder on its police blotter, just waiting for the ministrations of the man the Philadelphia Inquirer had dubbed “the Armenian-American Hercule Poirot.” In Philadelphia the situation was worse, because the situation was less focused. The Philadelphia Inquirer had stopped expecting Gregor to leap into the middle of any case that took its fancy. If Gregor didn’t say he was working on a solution to a murder, The Inquirer left it to the Philadelphia police. What The Inquirer did do was publish any picture of Gregor it could find—and there were a lot of them, because once the word was out that The Inquirer was paying, there were dozens of paparazzi manqué willing to pop their flash bulbs and bring back the trophy. Over the last few months, The Inquirer had published pictures of Gregor coming out of a restaurant, going into three different branches of the public library, and running to catch a bus. When there was the reasonable resemblance of an excuse, the paper got more elaborate. When Gregor had volunteered (as a result of Bennis’s threat that she’d play Axl Rose tapes in his ear if he refused) to serve as a draw at the annual Armenian Street Festival to benefit the Society for a Free Armenia, The Inquirer had published a solid page of pictures of Gregor getting pies thrown at his face. Philadelphia magazine had gone one better. It had published a full-page, full-color print of Gregor after a pie had caught him square on the nose. That was the same issue of Philadelphia that had contained the information that Gregor’s favorite food was Sara Lee’s chocolate fudge cake. This did not happen to be true—Gregor didn’t like packaged cake of any kind, and if he had he wouldn’t have admitted it; Lida Arkmanian would have murdered him—but it resulted in exactly 4,678 Sara Lee fudge cakes being delivered to Gregor’s door, six by messenger.
The nonsensical pictures of Gregor published in The Inquirer appeared on what used to be called the “Society Page” and was now called “Lifestyles,” and it was a picture from the “Lifestyles” page that was tacked to the bulletin board just behind the cash register at Ohanian’s Middle Eastern Food Store when Gregor came in after his lunch with Don Elkham. Actually, it was well after. Lunch had been predictably terrible, and Gregor had felt the need to walk it off. He’d done some shopping and some reading at the library and some wandering around near the historic monuments before deciding it was time to get home. Now it was dark and wet and cold and he was carrying an unwieldy package full of new ties in tie boxes. Why they couldn’t just fold ties into little lumps and put them in a bag was beyond him. The picture on
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