Free The Royal Family by William T. Vollmann

now. It had begun to drizzle, so that the car ahead was smeared and glowing. Crawling reflections made his own vehicle bubble inside like an aquarium. Hoping that John would be good to Irene when he did come home, he cruised down to the Mission, yawned, and checked out Capp Street where a weary old junkie was breaking in a spring chicken, explaining: Put your leg out, way out, and bend at the knee—that’s right! God, my feet hurt. You know how your toenails hurt when they’re too long? And I hate all this traffic. It’s just too hectic. It’s not calm. Now bend your back leg, too; okay, honey, straighten it out, lock it and wiggle your butt; yeah, show ’em some ass just like the Queen said . . . —but then the two whores saw Tyler’s slow-cruising detectivemobile and he had no more reason to linger, so he stopped at a gas station for unleaded and a stick of cheese-flavored sausage, admired the grand old curvy-cylindered-windowed Victorian houses on South Van Ness, swam past the parking garage, from which two whores were just then emerging (he photographed them and scribbled something down in the DESCRIPTION OF ACTIVITIES line of his surveillance report), wound his way back to Union Street and found John’s car gone. Grimly grinning, he said to himself: Am I my brother’s keeper?
     

| 21 |
    The following morning, when John arrived at the office (in the corner of his eye Irene’s car just beginning to pull away), a new doorman was there. They gazed at one another’s uniforms and passed without speaking; John had never even known the old doorman’s name. In the elevator beside him rode his plump secretary, Joy, whose spectacles goggled at the world from an unbeautiful but serene round face. She’d cut her hair short, and was wearing a blue dress. —Hi, Mr. Tyler, how are you? she began breathlessly; I’m a little harried but I did call him today . . .
    Who are you talking about? said John. Say, is my tie straight?
    Mr. Brady, she said.
    What did he say, Joy?
    He got the deposition, and he said to tell you that he’s very satisfied.
    John smiled.
    The elevator arrived. Pink-cheeked Joy scurried into her little cubicle, of which a cassette player and tapes took up a quarter, and John, passing by, glimpsed the baby seat for when she worked on weekends, the filing cabinet and the two desks crammed end to end. —Good morning, Mr. Rapp, he said.
    Morning, John. Congratulations on getting Brady.
    Oh, thanks, Mr. Rapp, laughed John, blushing with happiness.
    Joy peeked out of her lair, her smile expressing full unity with Mr. Rapp’s mazel tov.
     

| 22 |
    The amber button buzzed on John’s desk phone. Lifting the receiver, he depressed that unnerving crystal of luminescence, and said: What is it now, Joy?
    Mr. Rapp and Mr. Singer would like to bring you to a private lunch, said Joy’s voice, a little arch at the knowledge that it bore imperious tidings.
    When—today?
    Mmm hmmm.
    What time?
    One-thirty.
    Okay. Thank you, Joy, he said, hanging up. He made a note on his memo pad: Call Mom tonight. —He e-mailed a memo to Joy to do a search for Brady, Jonas A. on both the LEXIS and NEXIS databases and bring him hard copy. Returning to the Veblen brief he’d been preparing since yesterday, he pecked in three cunning additions to the boilerplate; he thought they’d lure an approving smile to Mr. Rapp’s face if he read them, which Mr. Singer certainly wouldn’t. At one-twenty-five his screen chimed. His stomach ached, and his fingers were feeling sweaty. He went to the men’s room, washed his face, and adjusted his tie.
    Boccaccio’s, John? said Mr. Rapp, with a smile that was not the approving one; it was the smile that meant nothing. He had left his blazer in the inner office, as was his custom when not receiving clients, and his starched shirt was as white as the solid left behind after sodium has consummated its marriage with ethanol.
    Sure, said John. I’m ready.
    He felt that he could not eat