Trudy Hopedale by Jeffrey Frank

Author:Jeffrey Frank
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: 2007-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

Seventeen

I HAD HEARD ABOUT Royal Arsine because Roger had mentioned him now and then over the years, although never in a nice way—I think it was something about working “beyond the parameters” and being expelled from some poor country for abusing tribesmen. And of course I’d read about him very recently because if the young Bush ever wins this nerve-wracking election, Arsine may get some big government job. But I’d never met him, and so when he called me at home and asked me to meet him for breakfast, it was a total surprise. I said okay, mostly out of curiosity, even though breakfast is not my best time of day.

Royal Arsine is one of those people you think of as being memorable, and not only for the way they look but because of the way they look at you. He has genuinely beady eyes (I mean they look like beads), a mustache shaped like a water bug, and he appears almost young until you get close and see the wrinkles and the gray hair and those little eyes, like a frog’s. Or at least that was my impression—and it was enough to almost make me turn right around and walk away from the restaurant. He was sitting in a corner booth reading the newspaper and shaking his head, probably because every story was about counting votes in Florida, which was starting to drive everyone in town absolutely crazy and must be a lot worse for someone who has a big stake in it. He would have been so easy to spot even if he wasn’t the only one there, especially when he looked at me with his BB eyes like I’d committed some sort of criminal deed. It was all a little mystifying, but I guessed that he liked to do that to people; maybe it gave his life more meaning. That’s probably why he wanted me to come to the Rouge Canine, a place where something happened during some crisis in the sixties. Everything was a crisis back then.

“I’m grateful you found the time on such short notice,” he said, with a sort of overdone politeness that might have been sarcasm. Arsine had a great voice, very sonorous, with one of those sophisticated accents that you hear in old movies, a little like William Powell. He wore a white shirt, a blue blazer, and a dark green tie. His hair was shiny and his part was just over his right ear. But I couldn’t look at him because his eyes—I know I can’t stop talking about them—were like two stones, and they didn’t seem to be focused on me, or anything.

“Mr. Arsine—”

“Call me Roy,” he said. Even though he faced me, he seemed to be looking elsewhere.

“Roy,” I said. “I have to tell you I’m extremely curious. It has to be something about Roger’s career, doesn’t it?” I was pleased with my businesslike tone.

“Your husband and I go back a ways,” he said, as if I hadn’t known that they were acquainted.

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