“That’s not funny.” BurNaard growls and pops the candle wax cork off a new forty-ounce bottle. As BurNaard serves Arthur Dodger his second ALCOHOLIC BEER (still not amusing), the doorman announces the arrival of Miss Kitty (a.k.a. Elisa Greene, no names please), who’s shown in and treated like a guest of honor by BurNaard.
Both men watch her entrance (causing a sort of lallation of their thoughts), which is always treated with genuine rhathymia by the subject. Her hair is down around her shoulders and she’s wearing her familiar simper (suggesting self-knowledge), along with an aubergine corset dress, fitted bodice has a drawstring scoop-neck, velvet placket and hook-and-eye closures; waist seaming and ruffle detail; side zip; cotton/rayon hybrid cloth, size XS, twenty-inches from waist; Giovanni Camolle designed; seven hundred and eighty digits; page 67 of the Hoffberg & Yoyando spring line catalogue, and very lovely. The drawstrings are loose and the scoop is forgivingly low. Elisa orders a glass of red wine from BurNaard who meekly grins and never makes it up to her chin. Then she joins Arthur Dodger at his booth, BurNaard pleased to watch her walk away, bend forward to peck Arthur on the cheek (dangling shadows accentuated nicely as she leans down) and finally, takes her seat.
“You know,” Arthur reaches exaggeratively for her hand and cups it in his palm. Elisa lets her appendage dangle there, as he rolls his thumb over her knuckles, admiring them, damn, even her knuckles, dapatical, smooth little ridges sweeping gently… “you know, you never can quite tell who you can trust…”
“I’m sure you’re going to tell me…”
“Do you know who you were dancing with last night?”
“You want to know who I danced with last night? I have no idea — several people.”
“No, do you know who that man was, the one that came up to you while you were with your sister?”
Elisa handles her glass indelicately with her little fingers, sipping rather than gulping every twenty-five or so seconds, licks her lips by rolling her tongue out and over each one and looks away at nothing quite often. She adjusts a boot cuff lying against her shin.
“An engineer, I can’t remember his name.”
“An engineer? That was Captain Vincent Belacque, Section 6 investigator. He’s the author of the Children’s Fiction report — you know the one.”
“Are you sure? You might be getting a little too paranoid, Nick.”
Of course the youngest son of the miller was disappointed. What would he do with a pussy? This was all background information Arthur detailed to her prior to the beginning, he was the youngest son and she, well she was…
“No, it was Belacque. I know him; he’s been watching us for some time. I’ve been waiting for him to make some move and it looks like you’re it.”
“Why would he ask me to dance?”
“Why else would he be there?”
“Because my brother getting married brings out the worst people.”
“He was there because of you, Elisa.”
“So?”
“So, if Section 6 is on to us, if they know you’re involved, it very well could be the end of it.”
“Don’t be so dramatic, he was just like all those other men who asked me to dance, he didn’t seem to want anything more.”
“He wants more, my guess is that you may be under surveillance, Elisa.”
“If I’m under surveillance Nicholas, why would he come up and introduce himself to me?”
“I don’t know… but Belacque’s ambitious, he might just be trying to use you to get to us. Possibly, he’s had you under surveillance and it’s led him to us.”
“So what do we do about it?”
“Do you think you could find out what he knows?”
“How?”
“That’s not protocol, Elisa. Section 6 doesn’t work that way, there’s no way he’d make his presence known without reason. I think there’s more to him asking you to dance than official business.”
“But he didn’t make his presence known, he said he was an engineer.”
Elisa reached down again and adjusted the corner of her leather boot.
“He had to realize that you or someone with you would know who he really was. I think it was a calculated risk on his part.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“So what do you want me to do?”
“Well you’ve been introduced, if he is following you it shouldn’t be hard to tell. Then all you have to do is initiate a relationship.”
“I’ve never been one to conceal my hidden charms.”
“From there it’s just a matter of finding out what he wants with you and if he knows anything about us.”
“So I’ll just be the girl waiting for the right man to come along, I’ve had a lovely time with all the wrong ones after all.”
“You’ll have to be careful, we don’t want it to backfire on us. He’s probably trying to gather evidence on you or the resistance or both. We can’t have you being a pawn.”
“It shouldn’t be hard to focus his attention elsewhere.”
“There should be indications of his intentions, Elisa. If you can find out what he knows about us — if anything — we can adjust some of our future operations. For now, we’ll assume he knows about us and that you’re his contact. If you can find out otherwise, we can move forward with the Program.”
“How do I do that?”
“You’ll have to be discreet, quiet about it, otherwise it’s to no avail. Pretend it’s a random encounter, that you’re oblivious to his case or who he is, that all you really want is a person to spend time with, he’s pretty conservative.”
“So I’ll be the opposite.”
“Initiate intimacy and get close to him, close enough so that he’ll confess to you what he really does and why. Then we’ll know.”
“I’ll get him to expose himself.”
“I’m serious, if you can find out what the Sections know about the operation, we can move forward, no more waiting. It’s really important, Elisa. I wouldn’t be asking you to do it if it wasn’t.”
“Sure you would.
“Speaking of my brother’s wedding,” Elisa mentioned associatedly, “there was a woman there, she said her husband was ‘lost’, that he’d runaway.”
“So.”
“Her name was Norma Moore.”
“So.”
“Her husband’s name is Joseph Moore.”
“Okay.”
“Joseph Moore, don’t you remember? You initiated him awhile back. Carl introduced him and you had me talk to him.”
“I can’t be expected to remember all the people I’ve ever met.”
“He’s disappeared Arthur, she doesn’t know where he is and the authorities can’t find him either. Section 9 hasn’t retrieved him and obviously you haven’t sent him on an errand. Don’t you think that’s a little strange?”
“He probably ran off with another woman or something.”
“No, he wouldn’t do that, he was genuine.”
“How do you know?”
“I talked to him, remember? He had two different colored eyes, he seemed altered — before he quit his cocktails, he was unique.”
“Are you sure you’re okay, you seem a little distracted lately.”
“I remember he asked me if I ever thought he could have been content, that was all he really said to me, the rest was odd quotes or poetry or something. I did most of the talking, it was strange, he seemed wounded or something, I felt like I needed to care for him.”
“Very odd — you taking the time to bother with him.”
“He said things to me that were like my own thoughts, I found myself confessing to him, however it was like he already knew all of it and I was simply reiterating. He was very different Arthur, he needed me to help him or something, however I don’t think he knew yet what he needed assistance with…”