Ambient 06 - Going, Going, Gone

its back feet and put it in a three-hundred-dollar suit, you’d have Frye. He sat there emitting a series of sinister chuckles. Those two were kingsize trolls but it was never clear to me what precise realm of the swamp they oversaw, and they seemed the sort who’d like to keep it that way. Martin screwed a Lucky into his holder. Bennett almost fell out of his chair, offering his lighter.
    »You get it?« he asked. Martin fired up and shot one smoke ring through another.
    »The Willard used to be such a magnificent hotel,« Hamilton proclaimed, oozing the grease of sociability. He knew if he came on like Uncle Bob he’d get an invite to any Friday dinner. »Sad, how much it’s changed over the years. You’re not old enough to remember what this was, before it was a coffee shop.« I’d have guessed nobody was. »It was a corner of the grand ballroom. The ceiling and those walls are false, you see. My friend Donald Cook’s graduation party was given here in 1926. Donald was the son of Senator Cook, he died on the Brittannica.« I was starting to wish I had. »An unforgettable evening. We kept our flasks at the ready, filled with hooch. Whenever the chaperones turned their heads we’d have a snort. I danced with Sally Patterson half the night.« He went all cow-eyed, recalling the scent of long-lost fur. »Fifty beautiful young men and women, learning the ways of the world.« I suspected he placed himself pretty high on the beauty scale. »The stage was there.« He pointed at the steam table, where two Japs stood slinging hash. »Seven smoke musicians. Real hot poppas from New Orleans, as we used to say.« He burst out in soft song. » If the man in the moon was a coon, coon, coon –«
    Hambone pursed his lips like he was spitting out watermelon seeds. Frye made with the chucks: hmnf hmnf hmnf. Bennett sighed; he probably spent half his life hearing about parties he wasn’t invited to. Martin, like me, played icecube.
    »I did some stepping out back in Cambridge myself,« Bennett said, at the same time eyeballing me. »Not very good at it, though. Two left feet.«
    »I suspect you underestimate yourself,« Hamilton said.
    »Surely I wouldn’t have held a candle to you, sir.« Bennett kissed most people’s feet because he was too short to reach their ass.
    »Sweet memory is all that lingers once the ball is over, gentlemen,« said the old codger. »So soon we forget.«
    If this went on much longer he was going to drag out the uke and start yodelling. After he tossed off that little lyric from the hit parade I was in no mood to foxtrot. »I’ve forgotten why you asked me here, actually,« I said. »Not to cut you short, my brothers, but I’ve got a train to catch.«
    »Mister Smith,« Hamilton said, speaking in my direction, as if he’d been struck blind but suspected I had a quarter. (My legal given is Bullitt, by the by, but I use a more forgettable monicker for piece work.) »I want to offer you the opportunity to reconsider our proposal. We think you’re our man for the job.«
    »I don’t even know what your proposal is,« I said. I’d turned them down simply because I hadn’t liked their looks; you get to my level and you can start getting away with that, sometimes. »Told you I like to see the sandwich before I bite down.«
    »Son, your qualms are understandable,« Hamilton said. »Ordinarily we’d have already enlightened you, but I fear a certain restraint was and is called for in this situation.«
    »Restraint’s my middle name.«
    »So Martin has told me. And Bennett, as well.« Little mongoose glared at me with beady blue eyes. »All the same your talents are such that we’re willing to make allowances for your, uh, personal style.«
    »I appreciate your appreciation,« I said. »Need more than that, though.«
    »In the fullness of time you’ll be provided with all necessary information.«
    »Time’s filled up. Spill or I’m walking.«
    » Walter!« Martin looked ready to come down hard, but I fired back my own daggers and he eased off on playing up the Great White Father bit. Hamilton didn’t look any more or less upset than he had when I’d said no, two days earlier. There was something about this I hadn’t liked from the start. Since I wasn’t officially on the payroll, and wouldn’t have been one of Martin’s Bennetts even if I had been, I wasn’t covered with the kind of insurance you have to have when you get too far out in the jungle.
    »Hear Hamilton out, Walter,« Martin