Off His Rocker

I do, and, in fact, I'm a little envious that O'Leary gets to unravel it all once again. I'm envious, that is, until I secure a Crocker File item that he doesn't have yet: Wylde, who'd been thought to be on the Eastern Seaboard--at least, that's where his most recent correspondence had come from--is back in Denver.

"I hadn't heard from him in four years," says public-relations exec Kyla Thompson, whose stationery was once one of Wylde's favorites. "Since then, I sold my company and I don't even go downtown much. My name isn't on the door or anything. But one day a few weeks ago, when I did go downtown, I heard someone asking for me. It was Wylde! He left me a bunch of rocking-chair crap. Then he sent more in the mail. Who can I contact to let them know he's back? Isn't there a detective?"

"I don't know," I say. "I don't think he's violent, exactly."
"No? Well, he used to scare the hell out of my staff," Thompson says. "Anyway, one day I ran after him and met him at the elevator. And I said, 'Look, stop it. Cut it out.' And he got nervous, oh, incredibly nervous, and he said, 'I'm not hurting you.' And I said, 'You scare us. Just stop.' He didn't stop. He turned out to be just like my ex-husband, and then I remembered: You have to treat crazy like crazy."

"How did he get all your stationery?" I ask.
"He would have had to stake out my reception desk for hours! Think of the energy it took! Anyway, hang on. I'll tell you what I got in this latest batch. Hmm...some stuff on stationery from some law firm called Crocker, Graham. From some photographer in New Orleans named Will Crocker. And, hey! Remember Antelope Bukowski? He's back, too! And it goes on, page after page after page!"

"He's back? In Denver? Really? Wow!" O'Leary says, when I tell him the news. "I wonder...but I have five other classes! I can't do this forever!"

"When's your term paper due?" I ask.
"At the end of March. And it's not a term paper, exactly. It's supposed to be a portfolio--ten pages of my best stuff. But obviously," he says, "it's going to be a lot longer than that.