- Prey
- Sphere
- Black Rose
- The Great Train Robbery
- Blue Dahlia
- Carnal Innocence
- Dance Upon the Air
- High Noon
- Lawless
- Sacred Sins
- Tribute
- Face the Fire
- Holding the Dream
- A Man for Amanda
- All the Possibilities
- Next
- Prey
- Sphere
- Black Rose
- The Great Train Robbery
- Blue Dahlia
- Carnal Innocence
- Dance Upon the Air
- High Noon
- Lawless
- Sacred Sins
- Tribute
- Face the Fire
- Holding the Dream
- A Man for Amanda
Two For TannerPage 3
“You’ll start school in the fall,” I said. She ignored me. “This is a good place to live,” she told Tuppence. “I’m sure you’ll like it here. Can’t you cook anything?” “Just human flesh.” “Human flesh?” “That’s all we eat in Africa. Human flesh.” “I think,” Minna said carefully, “that you’re putting me on.” Tuppence laughed. “ Central Park is only a few blocks from here,” Minna went on. “There’s a zoo there, but you can’t go by yourself. It’s not allowed. It’s a children’s zoo, you see, and adults are not allowed.” “Oh.” “They can only go,” she said, “if they are accompanied by a child. If you’d like, Tuppence, I could accompany you. I mean, I’ve been to the zoo before, of course, but since you can’t go without a child, I would be willing to accompany you.” “Why, that’s very sweet of you, Minna.” “Just let me comb my hair.” Minna’s hair is long and blonde and very fine, and has a tendency to snarl. “I wish my hair were like yours. I bet you never have to comb it, do you?” “Never.” “You’re lucky,” Minna said. “You’re nice. I’m glad you’re going to live with us.” She smiled at me. “I’ll be back soon, Evan. I have to take Tuppence to the zoo.” Tuppence did not live with us, of course. She had an apartment of her own and a job of her own and a life of her own, and we both felt it would be best to keep it that way. Her quartet got a three-week engagement at a downtown club, and sometimes I would pick her up after work and bring her back to 107th Street, and sometimes she would drop up during the day, generally getting trapped into taking Minna to the zoo. I was pretty busy myself around that time. I worked up a doctoral thesis (price – $1000) for a lazy graduate student at NYU on the socioeconomic implications of the Boxer Rebellion and wrote articles (no payment) for the Journal of Armenian Studies, the United Irishman, and several East European exile newsletters. I went to a great many meetings, listened to learn-a-language records, and read and replied to the great volume of mail, which makes me my mailman’s least favorite client. I sent money to Greece, to be smuggled into Yugoslavian Macedonia for my son, Todor. I received a coded newsletter from a friend in Bulgaria, decoded it, and had it mimeographed for dissemination to Bulgar exiles in the States. I did, in short, the things I usually do, and a month went by as months usually go by, and then Tuppence dropped in one afternoon and told me she was leaving the country. “A State Department tour,” she said. “Deluxe treatment all the way. Manila, Tokyo, Hong Kong, and Bangkok. This chick is going a long way from Nairobi, baby.” “It sounds good. When do you leave?” “Four days from tomorrow. Got to get a few dozen shots. Plague and cholera and all those good things. They threaten to make like a pincushion out of me, man. Then we get on a jet and fly. Big bird go over great water. Bangkok – do you believe it? It sounds dirty.” “You have an obscene mind.” “I’m hip, and don’t you love it? We’re supposed to have a command performance for the King of Thailand. The word is that he’s a swinger. He plays the clarinet or some such. Can you feature the king himself sitting in and wailing, and this little girl vocalizing? A long long way from Nairobi. Wow!” She sat down, then hopped up again and did a fast two-step. “This State Department cat mentioned something about going to Vietnam to entertain the troops, and Jimmy wanted to know which side. He said he’d rather entertain the Vietcong. Then the little State Department cat got very much up tight about things, like his face was bleached, and Kendall told him Jimmy was just joking, that it was his sense of humor. Mr. State Department gave the kind of laugh that means he didn’t think it was funny, but everything stayed cool. After he split, Kendall was about ready to kill Jimmy for almost queering the whole arrangement. Jimmy said he didn’t like to compromise his political beliefs, and Kendall said that for a tour of the Far East he’d paint himself red, white, and blue if they wanted. Do you think it’s true what they say about Oriental men?” “I thought it was Oriental girls that they say it about and I don’t think it’s true anyway.” “Well, I suspect I’ll find out.” “Oh, I’m sure you will.” She sat down again. “Now you know I’ll always be true to you, Bwana Evan.” “Oh, will you?” “Mmmm.” I saw her plane off at Kennedy Airport. There was a postcard from Manila, another from Tokyo, and a third from Hong Kong. I finished up the doctoral thesis, went to more meetings, and did a lot of reading. Then I got an odd letter from Bangkok: Bwana Evan: Bangkok is a gas but the bread is running low. It looks as though I’ll maybe have to sell my jewelry. As you know I have a very valuable collection. Do you have contacts that will prove helpful? Please let me know. My first reaction – that Tuppence had lost her mind somewhere between New York and Bangkok – gave way to a feeling of general bewilderment. When one lives in a world of secret societies and underground political movements, and does odd jobs for a nameless U.S. undercover agency, one becomes accustomed to finding meanings in apparently meaningless messages. I read her letter over and over and decided that, if there was any hidden kernel of sense to it, I couldn’t spot it for the time being. Tuppence had a pair of long gold hoop earrings, and as far as I knew, that was the extent of her jewelry. Obviously jewelry was a euphemism for something, but I didn’t know what, and in the meantime there was nothing to do about it. We had joked about getting her a ruby to wear in her navel. Maybe that was what she was referring to. I didn’t know, and I stopped thinking about it. |
- The Loners
- The Saints
- Switched
- Fangtastic!
- Re-Vamped!
- Vampalicious!
- Tome of the Undergates
- Black Halo
- The Skybound Sea
- If You Stay
- If You Leave
- Until We Burn
- Before We Fall
- Every Last Kiss
- Fated
- Suspiciously Obedient
- Random Acts of Crazy
- Random Acts of Trust
- Her First Billionaire
- Her Second Billionaire
- Her Two Billionaires
- Her Two Billionaires and a Baby
- His Majesty's Dragon
- Throne of Jade
- Black Powder War
- Victory of Eagles
- Tongues of Serpents
- Empire of Ivory
- Crucible of Gold
- Delirium