it was solvent and we were still the champions of the world.
A severed tattooed arm floating in what appeared to be lime green Jell-O.
And ... a pair of silver tap shoes from a nineteen-thirties chorus line.
"I have quite a collection," Lili said. "Perhaps I could interest a sharp young lady like you in working as my assistant. I plan a biography as well."
"Really. You'd have a lot to tell. I mean, I can tell you've lived a fascinating life."
"Unlike Lilah. She withered. Literally and figuratively. She was booted out of this Sunset City, you know."
"Booted?"
"We can't have the wrong sort of people ruining our ambiance."
"Your own sister?"
"Sisters are overrated, my dear. Live longer and you'll see that. Not trustworthy."
I nodded.
"She gave up and got old," Lili said. "I remain active. In fact, I have my own lucrative business going."
"Wonderful. What is it?"
"Ecology," she said. "Going green is quite the thing these days, and right up my alley. I was always interested in formulas and scientific effects on our world. The wind, the weather, the warming globe. I'm particularly fond of globes. You may notice that many, many decorate my home."
I'd spotted the spherical glimmer of glass everywhere.
"Snow globes," I said.
"Some. I do not limit my horizons, dear girl. Ah. I've forgotten to offer you tea and sympathy or at least scones."
"Thank you. I'm not hungry."
"Growing girls are always hungry," she growled at me.
I was beginning to feel like Alice at a mad tea party with the Red Queen.
"Just a nibble, perhaps."
"Fine. I'll go toss something tasty together."
She clipped off on her petite red spikes.
While she was gone, I got up to do a polite but thorough inspection of her main room.
I smiled and shook up a globe of downtown Wichita. Over there was Manhattan, of course. Wait. Manhattan, Kansas. Letdown.
And ... Augusta, not in Georgia, but the nearby community with the old downtown and its restored movie palace.
They were really up-to-date ... in Kansas City and environs, and there weren't just snow globes, but rain globes and fog globes and sleet globes. And so fanciful. One even had the Emerald City of Oz inside it, with a tiny broom-riding witch shooting fog across the sky reading: Surrender Dorothy.
"Oh, you've found my specialty globes," Lili said, clicking back into the room with a tray.
"Can you duplicate The Wizard of Oz scenes without permission?"
"Oh, my land, girl! Of course I got permission. I told you I headed a big corporation. Now sit down and drink this lovely, local tallgrass tea and have some homemade gingerbread scones."
Ah ... no.
But I'd be willing to sit in front of them and ask some questions. I didn't have to. Lili was pleased to chatter about her sister.
"Kansas wasn't good enough for Lilah. I told her the center of the country was best for us West girls, but she had Hollywood dreams. She blew off the family business and went" - she rolled her eyes - "really west. And what did she have to show for it? A few minor roles in third-rate films. At least she changed her name so as not to embarrass us."
"What was ... is ... the family business?"
"Nothing glamorous like motion pictures. Heating, plumbing, air-conditioning."
"That was ... available when you two were young?"
"Gracious, child! Of course. In fact, it was air-conditioning that seduced Lilah from Wichita to the Wild West."
I sipped a little tallgrass tea, and tried not to spit it out. It was chili-flavored!
"You're right," I said when I could speak again. "Air-conditioning doesn't sound very seductive."
"It's a fascinating field, with unlimited growth potential."
"Didn't the early movie theaters have it?"
"Exactly right. Those Roaring Twenties were also purring with Willis Carrier's rival air conditioner. He was a city slicker who sold the idea to the Rivoli movie house on Broadway in 1925. Our father, Weatherbee West, leaped into the business at the new Augusta film palace near Wichita and captured the central U.S. market. Alas, Lilah fell in love with the movie palaces and the silent films inside them, instead of the mammoth pulsing machinery cooling them. She made the oddest remark when she took the train to California against all our family's wishes, when she left the heating and air-conditioning factory for the film factory."
"What was that?" I asked, sniffing a terrific quote. Not that an investigator needed one like a reporter did. Great quotes, and recognizing them when you heard them, was a reporter's lifeblood.
She said, "The heart lies between the hand and the head."
"That is a great quote." I'd