“That’s great. But they never showed your face on television. If it was your story, why didn’t they use you on camera?”
“One doesn’t do that.”
“One doesn’t? A lot do.”
“People come to recognize you. Then you can’t do the kind of stories I want to do.”
“Oh. You must have been working on that story a long time.”
“It took a long time to set up. Once it got going, it went quickly. Very quickly.” “So guess where I am.”
“You like games, don’t you?”
“Yeah. I do.”
“Let me think … You’re in jail?”
“No.”
“You’re in hospital with some horrible disease the doctor says you must tell me about?”
“No.”
“I give up.” Jack rearranged some papers on Andy Cyst’s desk. “Why don’t you remind me of your name, if you ever shared it with me in the first place, tell me where you are, if that’s relevant to the conversation, then tell me why you called. You’ve talked so long I’m beginning to need a shower.”
“We didn’t do all that much talking, as I remember. We went at each other like bear cubs.”
“I don’t care who you are. I don’t care where you are. I don’t care why you’re calling. Good bye.”
“Staufel.”
“Is that a name, or an order?”
“Shana Staufel.”
“Oh, yes. Shana. So where are you, Shana?”
“Vindemia.”
“Vindemia. I’ve read that word somewhere. What is it, defunct coal mines in Appalachia, what?”
“One of the biggest estates in America.”
“Oh, yeah. In Georgia? Owned by …”
“Actually, I’m calling you from a phone booth outside the Vindemia Gas Station and General Store. The estate has its own little village, complete with chapel, library, and many, many rent-a-cops.”
“Cute. Owned by … the guy who invented uh …”
“Chester Radliegh. He invented the perfect mirror.”
“Oh, yeah. The guy who straightened out our left from our right, right from left when we look at ourselves in a mirror.”
“Right. Chester Radliegh. Massive implications for industry, science, space …”
“You sound like you’re quoting from
“I am. I looked him up. Before I met him.”
“Boxers appreciate his mirror, too.”
“They do?”
“They don’t get blindsided so much these days. Haven’t you noticed?”
“Guess I haven’t.”
“More fights go the whole ten, fifteen rounds now.”
“Is that good?”
“Think of the philosophical, psychological, to say nothing of poetic ramifications of the perfect mirror. I mean, for centuries we were seeing ourselves wrong, weren’t we? Not as others saw us, as they say.”
“Do we ever, anyway?”
“I’d like to meet him. Radliegh must have an interesting mind. To take a thing as ancient and simple as the mirror and realize it was wrong; it was backward … ‘In the clear mirror of thy ruling star/I saw, alas!, some dread event depend.’”
“Who said that?”
“Before I did? A guy named Pope.”
“I’m going to marry Chet.”
“What’s a Chet?”
“Chester Radliegh, Jr.”
“Oh. You called to invite me to your wedding? I’ll send a present. Shreds of my flannel shirt, as a keepsake, or a dust-cloth, whichever you need the more.”
“Not exactly.”
“What then?”
“To invite you here.”
“Where? Vindemia?”
“Yes.”
“You need someone to speak up for you? A playmate reference, maybe?”
“This is the first time I’ve ever been here. I’ve come to meet the family.”
“I don’t get it. Why would you need me? Even want me in the same state?”
“You’re an investigative reporter.”
“Thanks.”
“There’s something real weird about this place. These people.”
“Sure. They got very, very rich, very, very fast. Who said, ‘Wealth doesn’t corrupt as much as it reveals’?”
“Pope?”
“I don’t think so.”
“I want you to come here. I can say you’re my cousin.”
“As I remember, we look nothing alike.”
“Sometimes cousins don’t. You could just be passing by and drop in for a few days.”
“Sure. You’re marrying into a maxi-wealthy family, get brought home by Chet ditto to meet Mama, Papa and the Borzoi hound, and your distant relatives start landing on them asking directions to their larder. What kind of an impression would that make?”
“This place is so big, there are so many people wandering around, you wouldn’t even be noticed.”
“Yeah, I do a pretty good imitation of a potted palm. You telling me you think there’s a story for me here somewhere? What is it? The guy’s been profiled a million times. A Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor of physics invents the perfect mirror, makes zillions of dollars between a Tuesday and Friday, buys half the state of Georgia, builds a fifty room mansion—”
“Seventy two. Seventy two rooms.”
“Really? I thought I was exaggerating.”
“The roof is five acres.”
“Lor’ love a duck! I’ve been on farms smaller than that.”
“Five acres, they tell me. It looks it.”
“—has a gorgeous, well-behaved family—”
“That’s where the profile goes awry.”
“They are not a gorgeous, well-behaved family?”
“They’re gorgeous.” She hesitated.
“So?”
“I think they want to kill him.”
“What? Who?”
“Chester Radliegh. I think his family wants to murder him. His friends. The people who work for him. Everybody around him. I’m afraid one of them will succeed.”
“What on earth makes you say a thing like that? Is he that much of a bastard?”
“He’s a wonderful man.”
“Then why do you say such a thing?”
“I don’t know, exactly. Things are weird here. Little things. Everything is so tight, you know? Security. Yet, these weird little things keep happening. I think Chester, Mister Radliegh, thinks he has invented the perfect mirror
