“I don’t…”
“I hoped we might dine together.”
She folded her arms. “Why? What do you want?”
“Not much. A few hours of your company.”
She started to speak, hesitated, and said stiffly, “If you’ve a problem with the way I’ve been handling the books, I want to hear it now.”
“I want to see you. Can that be so difficult to comprehend? My God! How long has it been since we spent an evening together?”
“I haven’t kept track.”
“Nor I…but it must be months.”
She shrugged. “If you say so.” Then, after a pause: “Very well. I’ll cancel my plans.”
That comment touched off yet another rush of confusing memories, these relating to his presentation, and Rosacher experienced a flash of unease—there were so many details to sort through. “Perhaps I should postpone the presentation. We have a lot to talk about.”
“Are you mad? We’ve been working toward this for nearly five years. Don’t worry. They may have summoned you to receive their reprimand, but you’ll have them scrambling to see which one of them can be your best friend before the hour’s out.”
She said this last harshly, as if it were an indictment, and then went to a closet, selected a white suit and laid it out on the bed. She adopted a thoughtful pose. “Perhaps your green shirt. It’ll strike a flamboyant note. That’s the image you want to present. Those stodgy old men will see you dressed like a parrot, dismissive of their conservative conventions, and they’ll admire you for it. They’ll disapprove of you at first, of course. But they’ll come to recognize that you’re establishing your independence from them. They’ll view your disrespect as the byproduct of a bold personal style, and they’ll respect that in you…so long as you make it worth their while.”
She had grown angry as she spoke or, better said, she had let slip her stoic mask and shown him her normal level of resentment.
“Ludie,” he said helplessly.
“I’ll be in my quarters at eight o’clock,” she said, going to the door. “Try to be punctual.”
After she had gone he wondered if it was possible to restore the relationship. The council summons pressed in on him—he recalled its importance and his mind swarmed with details. He selected a green silk shirt from the closet and laid it beside the suit in order to gauge the effect, concluding that Ludie had been accurate in her judgment. It struck precisely the right note.
+
Arthur Honeyman, the gaunt giant who had broken into Rosacher’s apartment and assaulted him, had changed his outward aspect to a far greater degree than had Rosacher, though Arthur’s transformation was by way of a refinement. Honeyman dressed well these days, given to collarless shirts and embroidered satin jackets that lent him a dandified air ill-suited to his rough-hewn features and bony frame. He smiled incessantly in order to show off his false teeth. They were not white but, thanks to jade inlays, were decorated so as to resemble moss-covered rocks—when he opened his mouth, they gave the impression that you were looking into a forbidding cavern. On the day he had hired Arthur, sitting at the desk in his office, a room adjoining his old apartments, Rosacher made new teeth a condition of his employment.
“The health of your body and that of your teeth are not separate issues,” Rosacher told him. “If you don’t take care of them, sooner or later they’re bound to cause a serious infection and you’ll be of no use to me. Then there’s the consideration of your appearance. I want you to frighten people, but I don’t think it’s necessary to make them giddy with fear.”
“Will it hurt?” Arthur asked.
“Yes. I can do the extractions painlessly, but there’ll be some bruising of the tissues. However, you’ll suffer more living with a mouth like that than you will in losing the teeth.”
Arthur shuffled his feet, glanced out the window. “Why’re you doing this? After what I done to you, it don’t make sense.”
“Everyone in Morningside is afraid of you,” said Rosacher. “I’ve been observing you for several months and you’re not unintelligent, though your methods of intimidation are unnecessarily crude. Most importantly, you’re not an addict.”
“Too right! I’d sooner take poison than smoke a pipe of mab (this the name the citizens of Morningshade applied to the drug, being an acronym for ‘more and better’). I don’t need my view of the world tarted up. I prefer to see things as they are.”
“An admirable trait,” said Rosacher. “One I’ve grown to appreciate.” He got to his feet and came around the desk to stand in front of Arthur. “The past is the past. There’s no need to dwell on it. I can help you and you can help me by dealing with problems that may arise. What I’m proposing is a business relationship pure and simple.” He held out his hand. “Do we have an accord?”
“I’m your man!” Arthur shook his hand gingerly, as if taking pains not to injure him anew. “I’ll deal with your problems. You can trust to that.”
Rosacher was not inclined to extend his trust. For all his coarse exterior, Arthur was no fool and, sooner or later, the instincts bred by his rough-and-tumble existence would turn his intellect in a treacherous direction. Rosacher believed, however, he could find ways to keep him occupied.
Three and a half years later, armed with teeth that were no longer new, grinning fiercely at every passer-by, his huge frame draped in a jacket of cherry-colored satin embroidered in white silk, hair held back from his shoulders by a gay matching ribbon, Arthur accompanied Rosacher to the top of Haver’s Roost. People cleared out of the giant’s path, falling back to either side of the winding street; others came to the windows and doorways of the mansions of brick and undressed stone that lined it, made curious by the passage of this two-man parade. At the summit of the hill lay a cobbled square ringed by buildings of pinkish stucco with ironwork balconies and red tile roofs, open on one end (the opening was due to be closed off by a cathedral, its foundations already laid and a single wall erected). It was toward the largest building, a three-story affair with ornamental iron bars over the windows, that they proceeded.
“I’ve never been up here before.” Arthur sniffed the air. “Don’t smell near as ripe as Morningshade.”
Rosacher mounted the steps. “I think you’ll find the stench more familiar once we’re inside.”
A slender, dark-haired man, appearing to be four or five years younger than Rosacher, sat on a bench in the mahogany-paneled vestibule on the second floor, outside the council chamber, clutching a leather artist’s portfolio, listening as a functionary explained that he would have to wait until Mr. Rosacher finished his business before the council. On hearing this, the young man jumped up and demanded an immediate audience. Rosacher stepped in and said, “Excuse me. Mister…?”
“Cattanay,” said the man, giving the name an angry emphasis, pronouncing each syllable with biting precision. “Meric Cattanay.”
“Richard Rosacher. You have a proposal to put before the council?”
“I’ve been here since yesterday. I’ve come all the way from…”
“Believe me, Mister Cattanay. I understand your frustration. But I think I can assure you that the council will be in a more receptive mood after I have done than they are at the moment.”
Somewhat mollified, yet still agitated, Cattanay expressed doubt as to Rosacher’s claim, but when Rosacher told him that his business involved a considerable financial settlement, he sat down again. And when Rosacher inquired what his proposal entailed, he opened his portfolio and displayed a number of sketches that detailed a scheme for killing Griaule by means of poisoned paint applied to his skin. The idea seemed ludicrous on the face of it, yet Rosacher was forced to acknowledge that the basic notion was ingenious. He asked how long it might take to complete the job.