The Rosie Project (Don Tillman #1)(32)

Actually swabbing the glasses discreetly proved the most difficult problem and I was able to get at most one sample from each tray that I returned to the bar. Rosie was having even more problems.

‘I can’t keep track of all the names,’ she said, frantically, as we passed each other with drinks trays in our hands. It was getting busy and she seemed a little emotional. I sometimes forget that many people are not familiar with basic techniques for remembering data. The success of the subproject would be in my hands.

‘There will be adequate opportunity when they sit down,’ I said. ‘There is no reason for concern.’

I surveyed the tables set for dinner, ten seats per table, plus two with eleven seats, and calculated the attendance at ninety-two. This of course included female doctors. Partners had not been invited. There was a small risk that Rosie’s father was a transsexual. I made a mental note to check the women for signs of male features, and test any that appeared doubtful. Overall, however, the numbers looked promising.

When the guests sat down, the mode of service moved from provision of a limited selection of drinks to taking orders. Apparently, this arrangement was unusual. Normally, we would just bring bottles of wine, beer and water to the table, but, as this was an upmarket function, the club was taking orders and we had been told to ‘push the top shelf stuff’, apparently to increase the club’s profits. It occurred to me that if I did this well I might be forgiven for any other errors.

I approached one of the tables of eleven. I had already introduced myself to seven of the guests, and obtained six names.

I commenced with a woman whose name I already knew.

‘Greetings, Dr Collie. What can I get you to drink?’

She looked at me strangely and for a moment I thought I had made an error with the word-association method I was using and that her name was perhaps Doberman or Poodle. But she did not correct me.

‘Just a white wine, thanks.’

‘I recommend a margarita. World’s most popular cocktail.’

‘You’re doing cocktails?’

‘Correct.’

‘In that case,’ she said, ‘I’ll have a martini.’

‘Standard?’

‘Yes, thanks.’ Easy.

I turned to the unidentified man beside her and tried the Rosie name-extraction trick. ‘Greetings, my name is Don and I’ll be looking after you this evening, Doctor –’

‘You said you’re doing cocktails?’

‘Correct.’

‘Have you heard of a Rob Roy?’

‘Of course.’

‘Well, put me down for one.’

‘Sweet, dry or perfect?’ I asked.

One of the men opposite my customer laughed. ‘Cop that, Brian.’

‘Perfect,’ said the man I now knew as Dr Brian Joyce. There were two Brians but I had already identified the first.

Dr Walsh (female, no transsexual characteristics) ordered a margarita.

‘Standard, premium, strawberry, mango, melon or sage and pineapple?’ I asked.

‘Sage and pineapple? Why not?’

My next customer was the only remaining unidentified man, the one who had laughed at Brian’s order. He had previously failed to respond to the name-extraction trick. I decided not to repeat it.

‘What would you like?’ I asked.

‘I’ll have a double-coddled Kurdistani sailmaker with a reverse twist,’ he said. ‘Shaken, not stirred.’

I was unfamiliar with this drink, but assumed the professionals behind the bar would know it.

‘Your name, please?’

‘Sorry?’

‘I require your name. To avoid errors.’

There was a silence. Dr Jenny Broadhurst, beside him, said, ‘His name’s Rod.’

‘Dr Roderick Broadhurst, correct?’ I said by way of confirmation. The rule against partners did not apply, of course, to people who were in a relationship with someone from the same class. There were seven such couples and Jenny was predictably sitting beside her husband.

‘What –’ started Rod, but Jenny interrupted.

‘Quite correct. I’m Jenny and I’ll have a sage and pineapple margarita too, please.’ She turned to Rod. ‘Are you being a jerk? About the sailmaker? Pick on someone with your own complement of synapses.’

Rod looked at her, then at me. ‘Sorry, mate, just taking the piss. I’ll have a martini. Standard.’

I collected the remainder of the names and orders without difficulty. I understood that Jenny had been trying to tell Rod discreetly that I was unintelligent, presumably because of my waiter role. She had used a neat social trick, which I noted for future use, but had made a factual error which Rod had not corrected. Perhaps one day he or she would make a clinical or research mistake as a result of this misunderstanding.

Before I returned to the bar, I spoke to them again.

‘There is no experimental evidence of a correlation between synapse numbers and intelligence level within primate populations. I recommend reading Williams and Herrup, Annual Review of Neuroscience.’ I hoped this would be helpful.

Back at the bar, the cocktail orders caused some confusion. Only one of the three bar persons knew how to make a Rob Roy, and then only a conventional one. I gave her the instructions for the perfect version. Then there was an ingredient problem with the sage and pineapple margarita. The bar had pineapple (tinned – the book had said ‘fresh if possible’ so I decided that this would be acceptable) but no sage. I headed for the kitchen where they could not even offer me dried sage. Obviously this was not what The Bartender’s Companion had called a ‘well-stocked bar, ready for any occasion’. The kitchen staff were also busy, but we settled on coriander leaves and I took a quick mental inventory of the bar’s ingredients to avoid further problems of this kind.