Free The Spirit Wood by Robert Masello Page B

interest. “What did you think of the land?”
    “Well, there was more of it than we could see in one afternoon, especially since we got lost on those pathways more than once.” He laughed, self-deprecatingly. “But what we did see was"—he wondered how he was going to finish that—"very interesting.” He'd blown it again.
    “Did you see my house?” Nikos asked. “Or the dogs? You went down to the boathouse, yes?” This he directed at Meg.
    “No, we never actually made it that far,” she said. “We got sidetracked by the gazebo.”
    Nikos grunted again; Peter assumed it to mean he didn't think much of them as explorers. “Tomorrow,”Peter thought he heard him murmur under his breath; even if he had heard correctly, this wasn't the time to correct him. While they ate, Nikos continued to ask them questions, but now about what they did to earn a living, what kind of apartment they had, how they liked to spend their time; Peter found this interest in their lives a little surprising—he put it down to Nikos's having led a fairly isolated life on the estate, not seeing many other people—but Meg, who let Peter do most of the talking, had the feeling Nikos was compiling some kind of dossier on them, that he was accumulating as much raw data as he possibly could in the hope of sifting through it later and finding something, some kernel or clue, he could put to use.
    At one point, for instance, Peter had admired the ceramic platter for the fruit and mentioned that Meg was both a potter and sculptor. Nikos had looked up from his plate at that, and with his mouth still half-full exclaimed that she must see the kiln set up down in the old boathouse, that the platter on the table had been thrown there—by whom he didn't say. He was very enthusiastic about this lucky coincidence and mentioned it two or three more times before the meal was over. He seemed to be using it as a sort of selling point for the estate, the future of which, it began to be clear, was what the conversation, and the questions, had all along been chiefly about. When it suddenly dawned on Peter, he kicked himself for having taken so long to understand what should have been so apparent—that Nikos was wondering about his own job prospects now that his employer had died. He was trying to find out their plans for the estate.
    “Of course, our plans are pretty much up in the air right now,” he said, hoping to address the question indirectly, “while the lawyers and the Internal Revenue Service argue about who gets what, and then what's left when they're done. Whatever happens, Ithink it's going to be summer before we know exactly where we stand. I'm not expecting to make any changes,” he added, hoping it didn't sound too presumptuous, or too obvious, “on my own initiative.” What did Nikos earn, he suddenly wondered. And Leah, too. He'd have to ask Kennedy about their salaries, and make sure they were continued to be paid.
    Nikos ate with gusto, frequently refilling his own wineglass and topping off Peter's whenever he'd taken so much as a sip. Which, to Meg's surprise, he did more and more often as the meal went on. By the time Leah had cleared the plates and returned with small cups of thick black coffee, Peter had probably drunk two or three full glasses. While Meg was pleased in a way to see him forgetting one of his own prohibitions, she wished for better timing; now she'd have to do the driving on the way back home, and she wasn't that crazy about expressways at night. The coffee, she hoped, would help to clear his head, and hers. She was trying to catch his eye, to tap her wrist and indicate the time, when Nikos, plucking a handful of grapes from the central platter, bellowed something in Greek to Leah in the kitchen. She replied, apparently refusing to do whatever he'd asked, because he suddenly lurched to his feet and with the same choppy motions he'd used while eating, exacerbated by the wine perhaps, stumbled through the swinging