“Yeah. I’m familiar.”
“Uncle Will’s name was all over the papers! And you were working at the museum. How easy would it be to connect the two?” Evie explained. “Face it, Sam—you were taken for a ride. I’m sorry if you don’t want to admit it. The con man got conned.”
A worm of doubt twisted in Sam’s gut. He hadn’t taken that into account.
“Sam,” Evie said gently, “have you ever considered that maybe that postcard isn’t from your mother?”
“That’s her writing on the postcard. I know it, Evie. I will find her. I swear I will.”
The waiter delivered Sam’s Reuben and Evie’s Waldorf salad. From the corner of her eye, Evie could see people watching them, gossiping from behind their menus. At the famous round table, Dorothy Parker sat drinking martinis with Robert Benchley and George S. Kaufman, but no one was paying them any mind. Evie and Sam commanded the Algonquin’s full attention. Sam was oblivious. He was much more interested in his sandwich, which he was practically inhaling.
“Don’t choke. I need you alive. For a while at least,” Evie said. “So if I were to help you with Project Buffalo, what would you want me to do?”
“Read whatever I dig up. See if you can get a lead on anything.”
“Object reading.” Evie sighed. “Going two nights a week on the radio is already taxing me. I’d have to be careful. What’s condition number two?”
“You host the museum’s Diviners exhibit party at the end of the month.”
“Oh, Saaaam,” Evie whined. She dropped her head on the table with an Isadora Duncan–worthy sense of drama. “No. I am not helping Will. Why, it’s campaigning for the enemy! I hate that museum, and I hate Will, too.”
“You’re not helping Will. You’re helping me. If the museum goes under, I’m out on the street. By the way, we’re being watched.” Sam flicked his eyes in the direction of a table full of gawking flappers whispering excitedly to one another.
Evie raised an eyebrow. “No kidding. I didn’t just fall off the turnip truck, you know.”
“We should give them a little something for their trouble.”
“Such as?” Evie said, wary.