Free Children of Light by Robert Stone

was afraid he might appear obsequious. “Perhaps I’m not made of the same stuff.”
    “Perhaps,” old Drogue said. “I was indicted. I never did time. Life is made of perhaps. Perhapses.”
    “Lay off him,” the younger Drogue said. “He’s not getting paid to take this shit from you. Go pick on a qualified professional.” He turned sympathetically toward Lionel. It seemed to Morgen that a pattern was emerging in which each of the Drogues would seize an opportunity to protect him from the others. Perhaps even the old man would rally to his defense at the next attack. He glanced into the dark corner where old Drogue was lurking; it seemed, after all, unlikely.
    “Don’t let him demean you, Lionel. He thinks he invented political commitment. He thinks he invented facing the slammer.”
    “Well,” Lionel said, “it’s true enough about me. I’ve had friends go to the slammer for fighting apartheid but I’m quite untouched.”
    “You know what the cons say?” old Drogue demanded of them. “They say never trust a man who hasn’t done time.”
    “You don’t have to place your trust in me, Mr. Drogue,” Lionel said. “I’ll be on my way in the morning.”
    “There were bets down on whether you’d finally leave or stay,” young Drogue told him. “Weren’t there, Pat?”
    “Do I have to say how I was betting?” Patty Drogue asked plaintively.
    “Bets?” Lionel asked. “I don’t see why anyone was betting. We knew from the start how long I’d be here. I mean, your girls bought my tickets.”
    “Yeah, sure,” Drogue said. “But we thought under the gun you’d be more flexible about it.”
    “My schedule is not flexible in the least, Walter. I’ve taken all the hospital leave I can manage. I was back and forth to New Orleans adozen times. It’s taken me a year to organize my appointments in time for this trip.”
    Young Drogue gave him a long cool look and shrugged amiably. Patty stared into the surgical green light of the whirlpool bath. The old man was invisible within the patio’s toy jungle.
    “We haven’t changed our plans,” Lionel said. “I don’t see why that should surprise anyone.”
    Walter emerged naked from the lighted pool and slipped into a boxer’s silk robe that had Y OUNG D ROGUE embroidered across the back. The Drogues’ collective nakedness had begun to repel and embarrass Lionel. In his experience, the clothed party held the advantage in mixed encounters. Within the Drogue compound, this principle seemed to have been reversed.
    “O.K.,” Walter Drogue the younger said.
    “So,” Lionel said, “as I am on my way out, I thought we might speak privately for a bit.”
    Young Drogue sat down on a plastic chair and stretched, yawning luxuriantly. “What a good idea,” he told the psychiatrist. “Patty,” he told his wife, “bring me a drink, please. And bring the good doctor one. And the aged P.” Walter Drogue the elder swore audibly from his corner of darkness.
    “We exploit Patty a little,” Walter explained to Lionel. “She wouldn’t have it any other way.”
    “I’d like to speak privately,” Lionel said.
    “This is privately, Lionel,” Walter Drogue said. “This is as private as we let it get.”
    “It’s about Lu Anne,” Lionel said.
    “No shit?”
    “I think I just wanted to know … from a second source, as it were, how things were going.”
    Walter gave him a soft smile. “Fine, Lionel. Things are going fine.”
    “She’s quite good, isn’t she?”
    “Oh, I think that would be an understatement, Doctor. She’s always good, your Lu Anne. But this is something else.”
    “And the picture? Your feeling about the picture is good as well?”
    “Lu Anne and I are the picture,” Walter Drogue said. “We two together. And we’re good enough to eat.”
    “I’ve been seeing dailies as soon as they come in,” Lionel told Walter Drogue, “and I’m terribly impressed.”
    “We’re sitting on a treasure, my friend. We’re going