Free Black Locust Letters by Nicolette Jinks Page A

again all evening. Nor Clarkin, for that
matter.

Chapter 10
    Betty's father sat at the head of the table in a banquet room
reserved for business meetings, the walls perennially decorated
with mouldings and classical oil paintings, handmade things done by
Tetrametrius' art students, and the table itself was a monster
man-o-war of a table, fashioned from ancient oak and carved three
borders deep on all edges and down the legs. Betty actually thought
both it and the room, softened by indoor palms, very beautiful,
just tainted by the presence of the man in black sitting at the top
of the room.
    He
was smoking a cigar, tapping the ashes into a blue willow ashtray,
and he stood up when he saw her. “My Betty, my little girl, how
tired you look.”
    “ It
is evening for me, General,” Betty said, voice low and steady as
she pointedly ignored Slim who sat on his right side with a brief
case on the table between them as though they had just finished
putting work into it.
    When
he heard that Betty was not giving him a warm greeting, her father
sank back down into his chair with a sigh. “Not even a smile for
your old papa?”
    “ Not
while you call me a little girl.”
    “ Term of endearment, my dove, but if you feel you have
outgrown it, then I will stop using it. Take a seat. They're
bringing out a swan for us today, a proper Thanksgiving feast, just
without the turkey. A bit too uncommon in these parts ever since
the turkey farm had the bird flu.”
    Bearing in mind Richard's words of advice, Betty sat down
next to her father, grimly deciding to look at him rather than her
ex. “I've come to listen.”
    “ Well, this is a changed Betty, indeed,” her father mused. “I
am glad, my dear one, so very glad. Why don't you start with a bit
of the salad?”
    At
the mention, a server came out from behind a door with a chilled
glass bowl and laid down three cold china plates, then served the
endive and radish salad before he left again, one arm tucked behind
his back, prim and proper and straight as a military inspection
day. Stiffly, Betty stabbed a leaf and brought it to her lips,
taking only small bites so she could speak with her father faster
if he called for it.
    He
clucked, though if it was in approval or not she did not know and
tried to convince herself that she did not care. He said, “When you
said you were coming to listen, you meant listen and not speak at
all. Just bear in mind that you think constructively and critically
about what I am about to say.”
    “ I
will.”
    “ No
greeting for your love? Are you two still spatting?”
    Betty gently set down her fork, but the clinking it made
would have been less volatile if she'd slammed it down. “We are not
spatting. We are simply no longer together.”
    “ Pity, pity,” the general said. “It would be perhaps time for
a renewal of acquaintance? With both of you a bit older and more
mature, the relationship might work this time.”
    “ Did
you call me here to champion for James, or is there a less
pointless reason for getting me by your side?”
    “ Tut
tut, my dove, James is anything but pointless, but that is a topic
for another day. Yes, you are right, I did ask for you for another
reason.”
    Betty took a sip from her water glass, not touching the white
wine which was nearby and her ex fiancé was drinking from heavily;
he used to be of such a stout nature, she wondered if his will had
weakened since she'd last known him or if her presence simply
unnerved him to the extent that he needed a solid drink to face
her. She liked to think the second, but being around her father,
she knew it was probably the former.
    “ There is no easy way to breach the subject. You have been
reading the news?”
    “ I
do every morning.”
    “ The
edited news, you mean. Do you remember who was behind the Cliffdale
Mansion fire?”
    Betty frowned. “An electric pyro. Why, was that a cover-up?”
She mentally cheered for her good sense of being able to catch that
no-good police