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thinks he’s strange.”
    “Why?”
    “He’s got a third eye in his forehead.”
    Milo scoffed: “Nobody has an eye in his forehead.”
    “This guy does. And four nostrils in his nose.”
    “Yeah?” He was as gimlet-eyed as a homicide detective. “What kind of pet does he have—a flying furnal?”
    “Two of them,” I said. “He’s taught them stunt flying.”
    While we studied our menus and enjoyed our lemony iced tea, in no hurry to order food, Milo and I discussed our favorite cookies, Saturday-morning cartoon shows, and whether extraterrestrials aremore likely to visit Earth to enlighten us or to eat us. We talked about dogs in general, Lassie in particular, and anomalies of current flow in electromagnetic fields.
    With the last subject, my half of the conversation consisted of so many grunts and snorts that I might have been the aforementioned Sasquatch.
    Promptly at 12:30, a stumpy man carrying an attaché case entered the restaurant. Hamal escorted him to the previously specified window table.
    To be fair, the guy appeared less stumpy than solid. Although perhaps half as wide as he was tall, Waxx was not overweight. He seemed to have the density of a lead brick.
    His neck looked thick enough to support the stone head of an Aztec-temple god. His face was so at odds with the rest of the man that it might have been grafted to him by a clever surgeon: a wide smooth brow, bold and noble features, a strong chin—a face suitable for a coin from the Roman Empire.
    He was about forty, certainly not 140, as the online encyclopedia claimed. His leonine hair had turned prematurely white.
    In charcoal-gray slacks, an ash-gray hound’s-tooth sport coat with leather elbow patches, a white shirt, and a red bow tie, he seemed to be part college professor and part professional wrestler, as though two men of those occupations had shared a teleportation chamber and— à la the movie
The Fly
—had discovered their atoms intermingled at the end of their trip.
    From his attaché case, he withdrew a hardcover book and what appeared to be a stainless-steel torture device. He opened the book and fitted it into the jaws of this contraption, which held the volume open and at a slant for comfortable hands-free reading.
    Evidently, the critic was a man of reliable habits. A waiter came to his table with a glass of white wine that he hadn’t ordered.
    Waxx nodded, seemed to utter a word or two, but did not glance up at his server, who at once departed.
    He put on half-lens, horn-rimmed reading glasses and, after a sip of wine, turned his attention to the steel-entrapped book.
    Because I did not want to be caught staring, I continued my conversation with Milo. I focused mostly on my son and glanced only occasionally toward the critic.
    Before long, my spy mission began to seem absurd. Shearman Waxx might be a somewhat odd-looking package, but after the mystery of his appearance had been solved, nothing about him was compelling.
    I did not intend to approach him or speak to him. Penny, Olivia Cosima, and even Hud Jacklight had been right to say that responding to an unfair review was generally a bad idea.
    As the tables between ours and Waxx’s filled with customers, my view of him became obstructed. By the time we finished our main course and ordered dessert, I lost interest in him.
    After I paid the bill and tipped the waiter, as we were rising from the table to leave, Milo said, “I gotta pee, Dad.”
    The restrooms were at our end of the premises, off a short hall, and as we crossed the room, I glanced toward Waxx. I couldn’t see his table clearly through the throng, but his chair stood empty. He must have finished lunch and left.
    The sparkling-clean men’s room featured one stall wide enough for a wheelchair, two urinals, and two sinks. Redolent of astringent pine-scented disinfectant, the air burned in my nostrils.
    Someone occupied the stall, but Milo wasn’t tall enough to use one of the urinals unassisted. After he