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green and glossy as beetle wings. She had large breasts and slim hips and emphasized them with a pink angora sweater and a tight black skirt. Her hair was on the brassy side of platinum. “Wait here a minute, wouldja please,” she said, smiling and chewing at the same time. “Have a seat or something.”
    She sidled past me, tapped once with her knuckle on a door marked PRIVATE, and stepped inside. Across from where she entered stood an identical door equally private. In between, the walls were hung with hundreds of framed photographs, the faded smiles preserved like moths under glass. I looked around and found the same 8-by-10 glossy of Johnny Favorite that I carried in the manila envelope under my arm. It was high on the left-hand wall, flanked by photos of a female ventriloquist and a fat man playing the clarinet.
    The door behind me opened and the receptionist said: “Mr. Wagner will see you right away.”
    I said thanks and went in. The inner office was half the size of the cubbyhole outside. The pictures on the walls seemed newer, but the smiles were just as faded. A cigarette-scarred wooden desk took up most of the floor space. Behind it, a young man in shirtsleeves was shaving with an electric razor. “Five minutes,” he said, holding up his hand, palm outward so I could count his fingers.
    I sat my attaché case on the worn green rug and stared at the kid as he finished shaving. He had curly, rust-colored hair and freckles. Beneath his horn-rimmed glasses, he couldn’t have been much more than twenty-four or twenty-five.
    “Mr. Wagner?” I asked when he switched off the razor.
    “Yes?”
    “Mr. Warren Wagner?”
    “That’s right.”
    “Surely you’re not the same man who was Johnny Favorite’s agent?”
    “You’re thinking about Dad. I’m Warren junior.”
    “Then it’s your father I’d like to speak to.”
    “You’re out of luck. He’s been dead four years.”
    “I see.”
    “What’s this all about?” Warren Jr. leaned back in his leatherette chair and clasped his hands behind his head.
    “Jonathan Liebling is named a beneficiary in a policy owned by one of our customers. This office was given as his address.”
    Warren Wagner, Jr. started to laugh.
    “There’s not a great deal of money involved,” I said. “The gesture of an old fan, perhaps. Can you tell me where I can find Mr. Favorite?”
    The kid was laughing like crazy now. “That’s terrific,” he snorted. “Really terrific. Johnny Favorite, the missing heir.”
    “Quite frankly, I fail to see the humor in all this.”
    “Yeah? Well, lemme draw you a picture. Johnny Favorite is flat on his back in a nut hatch upstate. He’s been a turnip for nearly twenty years.”
    “Say, that’s a wonderful joke. Know any other good ones?”
    “You don’t understand,” he said, taking off his glasses and wiping his eyes. “Johnny Favorite was Dad’s big score. He sank every penny he had in the world into buying his contract from Spider Simpson. Then, just as he was riding high, Favorite got drafted. There were movie deals and everything in the works. The army sends a million-dollar property to North Africa and three months later ships home a sack of potatoes.”
    “That’s too bad.”
    “Damn right it’s too bad. Too bad for my pop. He never got over it. For years he thought Favorite might someday get well, make a big comeback, and land him on Easy Street. Poor sucker.”
    I stood up. “Can you give me the name and address of the hospital where Favorite is a patient?”
    “Ask my secretary. She must have it tucked away someplace.”
    I thanked him for his time and left. In the outer office I went through the motions of having the receptionist locate and write down the address of the Emma Dodd Harvest Memorial Clinic.
    “You ever been up to Poughkeepsie?” I asked, tucking the folded slip of paper into my shirt pocket. “It’s a lovely town.”
    “Are you kidding? I never even been to the Bronx.”
    “Not even to the