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—It looks good.
Eugene cut himself an enormous piece. He seemed so pleased while eating it that Jon could have sworn he heard him humming. He was humming. A tune, even.
—What are you humming?
—What?
—That song. What are you humming?
—I’m not humming.
—Yes, you were. Just now.
—No, I wasn’t.
Said with an unusual sternness that Jon took as a dismissal of the subject. So be it.
—All right then. You weren’t.
—It’s almost eight. I should be going.
—There’s no need for that just yet.
—I thought you had somewhere to go, too.
—Not tonight.
—Why would you spend the first night of your vacation in a hotel room?
—It’s not a vacation. I told you, I’m visiting an old friend.
—Well, still. Why stay here? Why not visit your friend?
—I have found out she’s occupied this evening.
—She?
—She. Old passion from my past, I’m afraid.
—And she doesn’t know you’re coming so that’s why she’s occupied.
—How very observant from one who has seemed heretofore so opaque. I mean that as a friend.
—No, I know fuck all about most things. My girlfriend just dumped me.
—?-ha. So you’re currently attuned to the caprice that is occasionally named ‘woman'.
—What?
—Women can sometimes ruin you.
—Goddamn right.
He angrily speared another quivering bite of bundt.
—What do you want to be, Eugene?
Eugene smiled sourly, blueberries in his teeth.
—You mean when I grow up?
—How old are you?
—Twenty.
—Then, yes, definitely, when you grow up.
—I don’t know.
—Surely there must be something.
—Nope.
—At all?
—At all. I wanted to be a musician. I’m a bass player.
—If you are a bass player, then why the past tense? Sounds like you’re already a musician.
—Fuck it, I don’t want to talk about it.
—Surely you don’t want to work here the rest of your life?
Eugene said nothing, shoving more bundt into his mouth.
—How would you like to come and work for me?
—You just met me.
—I’m an excellent judge of people.
—Not if you’re offering me a job.
—Self-deprecation is more destructive than you can possibly imagine, Eugene.
—A job doing what?
—Being my assistant.
—I’m flattered, but like I said—
—Look, I don’t want to bed you or your single-tracked mind.
He turned his full gaze on Eugene. Apple-green eyes resting in a lined, deeply tanned face. Cropped salt-and-pepper hair pulling back from strong temples. A small nose resting above a generously lipped mouth. A chin that only seemed on the weaker side until you heard the voice pouring from above it. Eugene began to sweat. He felt his skin pulling into goosebumps. He was entranced, trapped.
—I am not an average man, Eugene, and I don’t mean that in a boastful way. In fact, it has often worked to my detriment, but I do know a few things. My destiny is here in Hennington. I’m not prepared to share that destiny just yet but know this, I am not mistaken, misled, or delusional. I’m not just offering you a job, Eugene, I’m offering you a chance. A chance to be there.
And then it was gone, vanishing like steam off an athlete. Jon leaned back and smiled with a casualness that seemed to emerge from nowhere. Eugene could only cough for a moment before he spoke.
—Why me?
—Why not you?
—Why would you want me to work for you?
—I’m not sure. Doesn’t it seem right, though?
—You just met me.
—So you’ve said. I told you. I’m a good judge of people.
—I just met you.
Jon shrugged.
—You’ve got blueberry dribbling down your chin, Eugene.
It was a full moment before Eugene took his napkin and wiped the blue conflagration from his face, but by then he was already a former employee of the Solari Hotel.
16. Why Archie Banyon Feels the Way He Does About Women. (#ulink_e0985149-57b6-5636-8d06-aa2c1262a6b0)
—Maybe I can talk her out of it. It’s not too late. Ballot’s not for another four months. She could get a waiver on registration. Tell the people she’s reconsidered because of their support. She’d be re-elected by fucking acclamation if it came to that. She’s fifty-eight years old. She’s got at least two more terms in her. Three, even.
Archie Banyon’s limo was caught in traffic, which meant that Jules was going to have to listen to even more of this blather than usual.
—I’ve known her for ages now. Ages. Since before she was Mayor. She was my lawyer, don’t you know, and a right pain in the ass she was then. Right pain in the ass she is now, but a damn fine Mayor. Damn fine. She shouldn’t be retiring. Don’t trust that Max. Seems like a nice enough kid, but ‘kid’ is the problem word there. Cora’s got more sense than Max does. Hell, Max’s little whipper’s got more sense than Max does, and she’s what, ten?
—Maybe the Mayor wants some time with her family.
—What fucking family? She’s got Albert and whatever stud they’re currently fucking. That’s not family. That’s not even a card game.
—Would it be out of place for me to ask you to cut down on the cursing?
—Yes.
—I thought so.
—I don’t understand people who get power and then just give it up. Just say, ‘Oh, what the fuck, I just don’t want it anymore. I’m retiring.
He literally spat the last word, contemptuous saliva hitting the limo’s floor.
—Not everyone’s like you, Mr Banyon.
—And thank God for that. What a pain in the ass the world would be then.
—Would it be out of place for me to agree with you?
—Out loud, yes.
—I thought so.
—And what for the love of God does she see in Max?
—If you don’t mind me saying so, your opposition to Max Latham seems out of proportion to anything he’s done.
—I’m not against Max Latham. I’m for Cora Larsson.
—And why would that be exactly? Again? Sir?
Archie’s history was populated by the ghosts of dead women. He should have known something when his first wife was named Belladonna. Archie and Belladonna married young and desperately in love. Belladonna, whose formidable bearing and pomegranate lipstick eschewed any attempt at a nickname, gave birth to four daughters in rapid succession: Dolores, Soledad, Ariadne, and Proserpina, Belladonna’s sense of humor showing an appealingly dark shade. When Thomas was born, Archie intervened. Belladonna had wanted to call him Actaeon.
Archie’s mother, who had died when Archie was a teenager but who at the time of his wedding could be dealt with as a sad memory rather than the ominous beginning to a macabre chain, had been strict and loving with Archie until her death, instilling him with confidence, kindness, and a respect for self, a parenting trick that Archie was constantly sad not to have learned. Archie’s mother was the reason he loved women so much and also the reason for the manner in which he loved them. Not in the big-rack-hot-ass sort of way that his friends so perplexingly did. Archie just found them easier to talk to, easier to share a meal with, easier to take advice from. It was clear to everyone that Archie had found a wondrous and powerful match in Belladonna, a brilliant, passionate, dark-eyed lawyer who was the only daughter in a family of eight sons.
Belladonna’s misfortune was to thumb her nose at fate one too many times. One day, when Poison and her daughters Pain, Solitude, Corrupted Innocence and Bad Marriage were sunbathing on the fourth-story roof of Archie’s northeast Hennington estate, an earthquake opened up the ground and reduced the building and the five women to rubble. Archie had been inspecting a vineyard on a horse which hadn’t even thrown him during the tumult. Thomas turned up later full of unsatisfactory explanations.
Archie’s grief, a deep and powerful thing even if he hadn’t been by then the richest man in Hennington, was finally only mollified by an endocrinologist called Maureen Whipple, a name Archie thought inoffensive enough not to anger the gods. Copper haired with copper-rimmed eyeglasses, Maureen was an amateur lepidopterist and singularly devoid of risky imagination. But she liked Archie quite a bit, and he liked her quite a bit right back. Eleven days after their fourth wedding anniversary, she was killed when a derailing train hurtled through her windshield.
Archie’s third wife, Anna Grabowski, about whom the less said the better, barely made it down the aisle before perishing in a trapeze mishap.
His fourth wife was a devil-may-care whirlwind named May Ramshead. Eight years older than Archie, she was a zoologist with a wild streak. She rappelled off of cliffs, swam with sharks, and had spent time as a rodeo clown. Two and a half years of blissful marriage later, May died peacefully in her sleep when her heart failed.
Archie finally took the hint and settled, at age sixty, for a single life with female friends. That was when he met and hired Cora Larsson. Contrary to the whisperings of those few existing enemies of Cora, Archie wasn’t responsible for Cora’s success. True, Archie had sent Cora poking into some fishy business dealings of then-Mayor Jacob Johnson, but it was Cora who had followed the now-infamous trail to the mysterious death of Johnson’s father and the millions stashed away in accounts under the name of Johnson’s mistress, a story so familiar it needs no rehashing here.
It was, however, Archie’s suggestion, with a helping hand from Albert, that Cora run for Mayor some twenty years ago. Archie was thirty years Cora’s senior, but he was, if the truth be known, in love with her and always had been. Thank goodness she was already married to Albert and also that Archie realized marriage to him meant certain death. He merely had to be her friend. He gave her money and advice when she ran for Mayor and threw the inaugural ball when she won. She was also the reason Banyon Enterprises hadn’t cheated the city in over two decades. Archie respected her too much to ever want to face the disappointment of her certain litigation. He loved her, and that was that, more than enough reason to support her.
—What’s with this traffic?
—It seems to be clearing up, sir.
—Thank God for that.
—Yes, sir. Thank God, indeed.
17. ‘The Tale of Rufus and Rhonda'. (#ulink_9ccc307d-3186-5ab5-8580-6438a1343f36)
—How’s your head, baby?
—I want to cut it off.
