“Not now,” Lugosi said in mock menace.

“I’m going to the potty and having some cookies,” replied the boy, who ran toward the house next door.

“Perhaps,” said Lugosi with a small smile, “one should consider a new profession when he cannot frighten impressionable small children.”

I made my pitch, something like the one you get from the exterminators who tell you if you don’t hire them today, you’ll be up to your ass in multiplying roaches by tomorrow afternoon. I told of the dangers of cranks and the troubles I’d seen. I gave him references and my lowest rate, fifteen a day plus expenses. I did everything but tell him if he didn’t hire me I couldn’t pay for the gas to get me back to my office.

“Mr. Peters,” he had said, fishing a cigar from the pocket of his sweater, “the world is at war and I am not a wealthy man. The war will someday end, and the fool who sends dead bats will grow tired and move on to tormenting alley cats.”

“Who opened the hat box with the bat?” I tried.

“I did,” he said, lighting the cigar. “But I see what you are doing.” His smile broadened as he got the cigar going and worked a gray foul cloud into the air over his head. “You are trying to frighten me. But that is my business, frightening people. Both my friend with the bat and you could be much more effective if you hired me.”

“Did you tell the police?”

“They thought it was a publicity trick.”

I nodded knowingly. The odds were that I had Lugosi hooked. He had already invested time talking to me and listening to my pitch, and he hadn’t made up some reason to kiss me off and fade indoors. He might be saying “no,” but “maybe” was in view and “yes” only a length behind. I pushed on. I needed the job. The few hundred I had picked up in a case I worked for Howard Hughes had gone for minimal repairs on my 1934 Buick and to my sister-in-law Ruth. The Buick still needed a paint job. It was-or once had been-a dark green but had taken some scars of its own that I’d patched up with green house paint five shades too light that I’d picked up in the basement of my morning house.