“You know how these poor dogs were treated at the track? Before Julia got them from the placement center? They were literally running for their lives.”
“Yes, I do know, but that’s not the point—” she said.
“Grayhounds are given six chances to either win, place, or show before being ‘retired.’ Which is generally a euphemism that means they’re put down, unless the rescue people can get hold of them first.”
“Roger, that’s still beside the—”
“They spend all their days penned up in something like a three-by-three-foot crate, except for when they’re turned out to eat or relieve themselves. Wind up with pressure sores, swellings on their joints, bald spots from rubbing against the walls of the crates, not to mention—”
“Roger—”
“And besides, I’ve seen Julia break her own ‘no table scrap’ rule at least a dozen times this week.”
Ashley gave him a long-suffering smile and sat in the chair to his right.
“She’s their mother,” she said. “Which makes that her prerogative.”
Gordian watched as she reached for the thermal pitcher on the table, and freshened her coffee. She was wearing an open blue denim shirt over a peach-colored T-shirt, jeans, and white tennis sneakers. The smart angular cut of her light brown hair was the latest fashion collaboration between herself and Adrian, her stylist, accenting her high cheekbones and sea-blue eyes in a way that seemed like nature’s consummate design.
“I wouldn’t feed them off the table if they didn’t beg,” he said.
“And they wouldn’t be begging if you didn’t feed them. Or haven’t you noticed that they never park themselves anywhere near
He looked back down at the dogs. They had resumed their positions on either side of his chair, Jill sitting barely at rest and shifting her weight from one front paw to the other, Jack staring at him in rigid and unblinking expectation, his snout tilted upward.
“It’s a vicious circle,” he said.
“Or maybe just you being a pushover for any creature in need.” She picked up her muffin and nodded her chin at his plate. “You ought to have some of that food yourself.”
He turned toward his dish and ate without enthusiasm, still unable to muster an appetite. On the stereo, Waller had launched into “Cash for Your Trash,” his left hand swinging between octaves to lay down rhythmic bass and chord patterns, his right hand running up the scale with a bright introductory melody line.
Gordian found himself listening to the opening vocals.
“Haven’t heard this one for ages,” Ashley said, waiting until midway through the song to comment.
He nodded, took a bite of his eggs.
“I believe,” she said, “that no other performer has ever been quite so up about being down. If you catch my meaning.”
Gordian turned and looked at her.
“I do,” he said. “When you consider that he was a black man in a time of obscene racial inequality, then take into account everything his generation lived through… the first World War, the Depression, World War II. If memory serves, he made his final recordings just as we were about to send our boys to Europe.”
“Stormy weather,” she said.
He nodded.
“His music’s all about surviving bad times with a kind of resolute good humor,” she said. “About having confidence that just being here, and alive, gives us the chance to see better times ahead… trite as that may sound.”
He nodded again.
“Yes,” he said.
“To the trite part, or the other?”
“Both,” he said. “But mostly the other.”
They ate quietly and listened to the personnel on the various recordings — Benny Carter, Slam Stewart, Bunny Berigan, and others, in addition to Waller himself — roll through driving versions of “Lulu’s Back in Town” and “I Ain’t Got Nobody” and “Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter.”
Ashley watched him awhile, then gestured toward the phone on the table.
“So,” she asked. “Care to tell me what’s going on?”
“I’m expecting to hear from Dorset at NASA,” Gordian said. “We’ve been working to get the Orion inquiry up and running. I’ve given a lot of attention to its procedural mechanisms, but Alex Nordstrum talked to me yesterday about another aspect of the probe that ought not be neglected.”
“Alex?” Her eyebrows rose with surprise. “I thought he was busy stroking off on the fairway.”
Gordian gave her a thin smile.
“I think you mean teeing off,” he said. “Anyway, I asked him to come to the office as a favor and he did.” He shrugged. “You know.”
She looked at him.
“No, I don’t, but I’m assuming it’s a male thing that you can explain to me later,” she said. “Tell me what the two of you discussed.”
“In a nutshell, he reminded me that we need to earn the confidence of the American people rather than sit back and take it as a given. I’ve got some very definite ideas about how to accomplish that based upon his suggestions, and don’t intend to let this turn into anything resembling the debacle where an outside commission appointed by the White House went head-to-head against the space agency because of skepticism about its in- house probe.”
“Well-deserved skepticism, as I recall,” Ashley said.
“Yes,” he said. “There are going to be doubts about the credibility of this investigation’s findings no matter how thorough a job is done. But if we can’t manage to cut them down to size, I don’t think the program will ever recover.”
She swallowed some of her muffin. “How’s Dorset feel about your input? People get territorial.”
“Thus far, we’re in synch. Chuck is a reasonable man and has the best interests of NASA at heart.” He turned to face her. “Also, he’s got very little choice but to be receptive to my suggestions. Without UpLink’s technology and access to foreign governments there’s no ISS. Period.”
She smiled at him.
“Hard to imagine anyone trying to ignore you when you get that steely look in your eyes,” she said.
He cleared his throat, lowering his head to study his plate, a boyish sign of embarrassment that Ashley pretended not to notice.
She decided to wait a few seconds, then asked, “Which of your specific recommendations is Dorset supposed to call about this morning?”
“I told him who I’d like to head up the investigative task force. Unequivocally.”
“And?”
“And his only real problem — or concern, I should say — was that he didn’t want anybody in his organization to feel resentful about being bypassed for the job.”
“Understandable,” Ashley said. “Turf again. You know how it can be.”
“I do, Ash. But there’s no time to worry about NASA’s bureaucratic harmony right now. The faster we get things done, the better. There’s the Russian launch at the end of the month, and I want to see it come off without postponement. Because I
“Delacroix,” she said. “He the one you saw wrestle that big stuffed bear in the hammer-and-sickle trunks?”
“On the Senate floor.” He exhaled slowly. “Anyway, Dorset’s going to let me know if the person I want is even interested in the appointment. If this pans out the way I’m hoping it will, we’ll have taken a huge step toward gaining the public trust. And it’ll be a deserved step.”
“Any reason you haven’t named your pick to me?”
He shrugged, looking slightly awkward.
“Pure superstition. Another mark of an old flier,” he said. “I’ll tell you if you insist, but—”
