Night Inspector by Frederick Busch

Author:Frederick Busch
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Fiction
ISBN: 9780609607688
Publisher: Harmony Books
Published: 1999-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 5

THE THREE OF US DINED AT CHEERIE’S, AND DURING the meal I saw Sam’s hand stray often toward the breast pocket of his mud-colored suit. That was because he wished to make a note, I knew, and I felt a cruel pleasure that civility, if only for a time, prevented him from writing down what his idol so memorably said. Clearly, I had not, at the time, understood the need to write down life or state the having witnessed it.

As the veal was brought to us, Sam said, “Will you have some of this elixir of logwood?” He held up the bottle of red wine.

M looked at the bottle and looked at Sam. “You have read it, then?”

“The masquerade of the Confidence Man? Yes, sir, I have read it.”

“A book,” its author said to me, “in which I name such an elixir.”

“Of course,” I lied.

“A great book,” Sam said. “A philosophical argumentation.”

“As usual,” its author said, “a matter of an argument between one man and nobody else. It takes two parties to argue, and whether the party of the second part—those who are not the author—be one or one thousand, that party must be a party to the contention. Otherwise, you have the lone author saying to the sky or the loamy earth beneath him, ‘Given: That man is magnificent.’ Or: ‘That man is a dog.’ ” He sat back and leaned back his head and laughed, his dark mouth open and not emitting a sound. He then shook his head and leaned forward to address his viands. Sam looked at him, then reached for his notebook, then brought his hand back around to his wineglass.

I cut my meat into very small bits and brought them on my fork, one at a time, underneath the hem of the gray silk veil.

“May I ask,” I said between bites, “how Elizabeth fares?”

“Lizzie,” he sighed. He turned to Sam. “My son,” he said, “is recently dead.”

“I am so aggrieved on your account,” Sam said. “I wrote of the matter. In the Advertiser?”

M set his implements down. He rubbed at his beard and then tugged it, then tugged it again. “You are the gentleman who wrote of my Malcolm’s staying out late?”

Sam said, “It was known to many.”

“Needed it be said? And how late? And how often? And why a matter of concern? To Lizzie? To me? To the both? To the readers in Boston who do not read me but do read of me?”

“It is history, recorded and observed, sir.”

“And it needs to be said?”

“I do need generally to say it, sir. I believe it ought to be.”

“Sharper than a serpent’s tooth,” he murmured, pulling down his whiskers. “And why do you ask in your paper how Malcolm came by the pistol? Should he not have had one, he a military man? Your article seems to suggest an impropriety. Should we have prevented him from arming himself? Is it now that soldiers of the National Guard ride into danger unprotected and unarmed? There had been rumors of their riding into danger in the West.

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