Detective Friday's mind and stomach having returned safely to the comfort zone of the back seat of the Yellow Cab 'Soto (after his nostalgic plunge from the sublime to the ridiculous in the renowned elevator of the Hotel Mark H), Walter tuned back into Lola's nervous chatter on matters of Midwest animal husbandry as related to Professor Yves Martine's recent and controversial studies in aberrant human behaviors and why, as noted by Chesterton, there were few poems, if any, on the subject of cheese. He mused that this was the lady's way of diverting attention away from her understandable anxiety over Ricky's fate at the mean and inordinately pudgy hands of Boss Graziano.
Self preservation.
Taking some further moments to get his bearings and shake off the vicarious adrenaline rush from his childhood reminiscence, the otherwise on-the-top-of-all-matters-great-and-small guy realized that he had failed to give the driver directions to the pair's lofty albeit tortuous destination. Nevertheless, the cabbie pulled up to the swept and tidy curb of 555 Lombard as if, in point of fact, he had been already apprised of the upscale neighborhood, the address, the imposing structure to which a higher power had directed him. Right arm splayed across the soft curve of the front bench seat, Tony - for that was the driver's Christian name - turned his capped head, smiled as wide a grin as would be deemed friendly yet not broaching borders of professional propriety, and declared that here we are folks!
Walter handed Tony a fiver and told him to keep the change, grabbed the package, opened the door and, after planting his black wingtips firmly on the freshly washed sidewalk, turned back toward the cab and offered Miss Fanfarre his free hand. She smiled broadly as she shimmied upward and outward and dug her spikes into concrete fully accustomed to such exquisitely painful and clacking footfalls.
Jeeves stoically awaited the pair at the summit of Italian black marble stairs and beckoned them enter (with a near imperceptible sweep of white-gloved hand) through the imposing and glossy Chinese red door.
