'I don't mean to, I mean, if you'd rather ... '
'Lunch sounds great.'
Whoa.
'Do you know the Taurus?' he asked.
'Sure.'
'Is one o'clock OK?'
'One o'clock's perfect.'
'Great! Well, see you then.'
'OK, bye.'
'Bye.'
Eliot hung up and looked at the phone, thinking: A date! Kind of!
Then he thought: She's a married woman, and she is simply returning your glasses, and you are a loser.
But that did not stop him from feeling absurdly happy as he locked his door and—taking the back stairs, so as to avoid the building manager—headed for the bank to cash the Client From Hell's check, so he could buy lunch.
Henry and Leonard met with their Penultimate, Inc. contact at a pricey Brickell Avenue restaurant called Dunley's, which was decorated to look like an exclusive men's club, with lots of oak and fake old paintings. It was popular with business people who wished to impress clients by buying them steaks the size of Shetland ponies.
The Penultimate contact was a man named Luis Rojas, whose title was director of special operations. They sat in a corner, next to a table of four lawyers who were talking loud about golf clubs. Henry and Luis Rojas spoke quietly; Leonard, still woozy from running into the wall, mainly chewed.
'My employer is concerned,' Rojas said to Henry.
'Is that right?' said Henry, cutting off a piece of steak.
'Yes,' said Rojas. 'He is very concerned, and he wants to know when you intend to finish this job.'
'I want to know some things, too,' said Henry. 'For instance, who is this guy running around with a rifle, and who is this guy jumping on me out of a tree?'
'What guy in a tree?' asked Rojas.
'That's what I'm wondering,' said Henry. 'You bring us down here, tell us this is a simple job, just like the other times. In and out, you tell us. No security, you tell us. Next thing I know, I got Geronimo running into the house, and I got Tarzan landing on my head.'
'Plus the woman,' said Leonard, between chews.
'The woman?' asked Rojas.
'Outside, by the wall with Tarzan,' said Leonard. 'A woman.'
Rojas thought for a moment.
'Listen,' he said. 'Like I told you, my employer is very concerned that you should finish this job. But he is also concerned about who these other people are, why somebody else wants to ... be involved. So we would like to know anything that you can find out, in addition to doing the job.'
At the next table, the four lawyers were drinking cognac and lighting cigars.
'OK,' said Henry, cutting another piece of steak. 'We can do the job, and we can see what we find out about Geronimo and Tarzan. But you tell your employer that, number one, we are gonna need sometime, looking around, checking in the trees, you understand? And number two, the price goes up.'
The lawyers were puffing vigorously; a dense cloud of smoke billowed outward from their table.
'How much?' asked Rojas.
'Excuse me,' said Henry, putting down his fork. He rose from his chair, walked over to the next table, and stood there, waiting, until all four lawyers had stopped talking and were looking at him.
'Gentlemen,' said Henry. 'Would you mind putting your cigars out?'
The lawyer to Henry's immediate left, Lawyer A, cocked his head and assumed an exaggeratedly quizzical expression, as if he hadn't heard correctly.
'I beg your pardon?' he said.
'I asked you,' said Henry, 'if you would mind putting your cigars out.'
'As a matter of fact, I would mind,' said Lawyer A. This got smiles from Lawyers B, C, and D.
'The reason I ask,' said Henry, 'is, maybe you never thought of this, but when you light those things, everybody else has to smell your smoke. I got a nice New York strip over there, cost me twenty-seven-fifty, and it tastes like I'm eating a cigar.'
'Listen, Ace,' said Lawyer B. 'Number one, there's no rule against smoking in this restaurant. And number two, you are way outta line.'
'OK,' said Henry, 'Number one, my name is not Ace. Number two, I'm not talking about rules, here. I'm talking about manners. There's no rule says I can't come over here and fart on your entree, but I don't do it, because it's bad manners. It detracts from your dining experience, you know? I'm just saying, I don't stink up your lunch, you don't need to stink up everybody else's lunch. So, one more time, I'm asking nice, please put out the cigars, OK?'
