Margaret Maron: The Right Jack

Their laughter muted as they abruptly remembered the bombs Fred Hamilton and his followers had planted that violent winter of 1970. The four children who were killed outright, the woman left blind, the man who'd eventually died after two years in a coma.

"Do you suppose they'll ever surface?" Val asked as John tried to flag a taxi in front of their Greenwich Village apartment.

"It's odd you should ask that," he frowned.

Val looked at him questioningly, but he was distracted by the balky door on the battered yellow cab that slid to a stop at the curb; and once they were both settled inside, their thoughts turned to the cribbage tournament ahead.

"Hotel Maintenon," Sutton told the cabbie, then reached for his wife with an exaggerated leer. She fluttered her eyelashes at him and slipped closer; but when his hand began to wander too freely, she clasped it firmly and said, "Now pay attention, class: how many points for three sixes and a pair of threes?"

AFTER a comfortable dinner at their club, Zachary Wolferman and his cousin. Haines Froelick, entered Mr. Wolferman's limousine for the short ride to the Maintenon.

Mr. Froelick's mother had died shortly before he finished his first year at prep school and his aunt, Mr. Wolferman's mother, had instructed the boy to look upon her thenceforward as his own mother.

Some women have such generous hearts that each new demand merely enlarges their capacity for love. Fitting a second child into her crowded social calendar meant a halving of Mrs. Wolferman's maternal devotion, but half of almost nothing made little difference to seven-year-old Zachary.

He was so pleased to acquire a live-in chum for the summer holidays that he barely noticed any diminution of his busy mother's affection. Lacking other siblings, the two boys grew up as close as brothers.

Mr. Wolferman, of course, had filled his appointed slot at Maritime National; Mr. Froelick, with a modest income from various family trusts and a disinclination for hard work, had devoted his life to photography and assorted charitable works. Both had remained bachelors.

They played cribbage with a zest unabated since old Augustus taught them the game the summer they were ten, and they began keeping a cumulative score their thirtieth summer. Mr. Froelick had enjoyed a run of luck lately so the tally currently stood at 8,132 to 8,105, but Mr. Wolferman had placed higher in last year's tournament, making one of the last thirty-six finalists before being eliminated by a pharmacist.

"By a pharmacist from somewhere in Brooklyn," he was reminiscing to his cousin Haines. "Flatlands? Flatbush? Flat-something. Interesting chap. He was the reason I took that flyer in Westmachter Pharmaceuticals."

"I believe I read that the trial begins next month," commented Mr. Froelick, still piqued because he'd been eliminated in the fourth round of play last year after being dealt three nineteen-point hands in a row.

There was silence in the limousine.

"It wasn't his fault that Westmachter's quality control was so abominable," Mr. Wolferman said defensively. "They were doing quite well until that batch of tainted pills."

The gleaming limo pulled up at the East Forty-seventh Street entrance to the Hotel Maintenon.

"You needn't bother about later, Willis," said Mr. Wolferman. "Mr. Haines and I will take a cab."

He knew how much his cousin hated taxis. However, if one planned to venture among common people, one might as well make a thorough job of it. Haines could jolly well lump it, he thought, nodding

A cribbage hand may contain anywhere from 0-29 points with one curious exception: the cards never add up to exactly 19 points. Therefore, a hand with no points at all is ironically referred to as a '19-pointer.'

graciously to the uniformed doorman who held the polished glass slab open for them.

Lucienne Ronay would have been insulted had she known that Mr. Wolferman entered her establishment with a vague expectation of someone about to go slumming. Of her trio of beautifully appointed hotels, the Maintenon was Madam Ronay's favorite, the central jewel in the necklace of properties she had inherited from her late husband.

On the other hand, she shared something of Mr. Wolferman's ambivalence toward the cribbage tournament booked into the d'Aubigné Room this weekend. It was not the Maintenon's usual cup of souchong, but the room had been available, Graphic Games had not quibbled about the cost, and Lucienne Ronay was as pragmatic as any Frenchwoman when it came down to dollars and francs on her balance sheets.

From her observation post on the second-floor balcony, she viewed the main entrance and lobby and could not resist comment as tournament players began to straggle up the wide marble staircase.

"We might wish for more tweeds and silks," she told Molly Baldwin, one of her trainee assistants, "but polyester will buy our caviar this weekend, ma petite ."

Her diamond and emerald earrings sparkled against the smooth lie of her cheek as she glanced down complacently at the vibrant green of her silk taffeta. There was a lush Elizabethan feel to the gown. The tight bodice and shockingly low neckline made the most of her small waist and magnificent bosom, while the long full sleeves restored a semblance of modesty.

Molly Baldwin, dressed in a simple dark blue sleeveless sheath with crystal earrings, felt like a drab little mouse by comparison.

Of course, Lucienne Ronay's extravagant clothes and lavish jewels were part of her glamorous public persona. Her guests expected it and would indeed have felt slightly cheated if Madame Ronay suddenly began to dress like a denizen of Wall Street. Besides, gray flannel would ill-become someone so very blonde, so generously proportioned, who sprinkled even business conversations with intimate French phrases and who moved in a mist of fragrance created just for her by an exclusive parfumeur .

Skilful makeup widened her hazel eyes and lent an illusion of high cheekbones to a face that was basically round and might even have been ordinary had it not been for the personality that animated it. Makeup also hid any trace of wrinkles, even though Madame Ronay occasionally bemoaned the fact that she was only a year or so away from fifty.

Fifty ! Molly Baldwin thought despairingly, She would gladly have doubled her own twenty-three years if she thought there was a chance that age would leave her with La Reine's poise and beauty.

Misinterpreting Molly's sigh, Madam Ronay smiled indulgently. "Nervous, chérie ? Is not everything as the so handsome Mr. Flythe has ordered?"

Her tone was light, but the question was serious. And she expected a positive answer.

Coordinating the cribbage tournament was Molly's first solo assignment at the Maintenon. She wished it had been something else, but assistant manager trainees did not question La Reine's assignments. There had been a thousand details to oversee: the hospitality tables, the coolers of wine, the urns of coffee, trays of hors d'oeuvres, the fresh flowers, the scheduling of waiters and busboys for the weekend, the sound system, the proper number of linen-covered tables, sufficient chairs-the list seemed endless.

Fortunately, Theodore Flythe of Graphic Games had proved easy to work with (Madame was right: he was extremely handsome); but even if he'd been fussy and demanding, Molly would have risked displeasing him sooner than Madame Ronay, who possessed a regal intolerance for incompetence.

"No," she told her employer, looking down at the players who were now streaming through the lobby. "Everything seems to have fallen into place. It's always amazing that it does."

"Out of so much chaos, order?" The older woman nodded serenely. She had spent enormous amounts of time and money in assembling and training her staff, and when it did not move like well-oiled machinery, the balky cog soon found itself out on the street.