Read Institute for Free Online Page B

before he comes in, to pull back from this Rubicon.”
    “Can’t let Caesar skunk me.”
    I struck a pose, my fingers in my lapel. She winced. “Oh for God’s sake, Lloyd, that’s Napoleon, not Caesar!”
    “Can’t let Boney skunk me either.”
    I didn’t notice at first that she had used my given name, the first time all morning. Under my coat my fingers suddenly touched the keys I’d put on the ring for her, which I’d dropped into my shirt pocket. I took them out and offered them to her.
    “What’s that?”
    “Keys. One to the back door of the building, one to my apartment. So the next time you come—”
    “The next time I come! As funny as you are, you should be on television. Do you seriously think there will be a next time for me after the way you’ve—”
    “We said we were hit by a truck, and the truck I was hit by has no reverse gear. All I know is, God willing, I’ll hope for a next time. And perhaps—”
    I reached over and dropped the keys down the front of her blouse, into the V below her neck. Her hand slapped to stop them from slipping down, but in spite of her slapping and grabbing, they slipped down anyway. Suddenly she stopped trying to fumble them out, and lay there staring at me.
    “Lloyd,” she whispered, “when you said what you did just now, about the truck with no reverse, your eyes didn’t lie to me.”
    “I hope to tell you, they didn’t.”
    “It gives me an idea!”
    “Well, Hortense, please—not here!”
    “Why not?”
    “Because, if it’s the idea I have—”
    “My sweet, there can be only one idea—one real idea.” She smiled. “It all depends on the way it’s put into effect.” Her eyes narrowed until they were slits, glittering as though hornets were crawling on them.

6
    W HAT THOSE HORNETS MEANT I found out soon enough. Mr. Garrett came in a few minutes later, wearing slacks and lounge coat this time. He nodded amiably to me and bowed in a courtly manner to Hortense.
    “Hello,” she crooned in a low voice, waving him closer. He went over to her and sat down as she moved to give him room, responding when she pulled him down for a kiss. “... and hello,” he growled, obviously shaken.
    Suddenly I knew what it felt like to suffer.
    “Be with you in a minute,” he flung over his shoulder to me, bending over her again. I walked to the window and stared out at Wilmington—which isn’t much to look at when viewed under such circumstances.
    “Now,” he said. When I turned, he was sitting beside her, holding her hand and patting it. “My wife,” he went on, “says you have an idea, something you think will change her mind. I’m listening.”
    “Well,” I said, trying to regain my wits, “I had no idea before—when I was here yesterday, I mean— why she felt as she did—”
    “Feel as I do,” she corrected me.
    “But she let something drop as we were driving to Washington which put me on the track of a way to work things out so that she can have what she wants—except better and more of it—”
    “I’m curious.”
    “Mr. Garrett, it seems she’s a frog—”
    “But a great big beautiful frog—”
    “Yes sir, in the biggest puddle on earth.”
    “My boy, Wilmington’s big, I promise you—bigger than I am by far. In some other place, I’d be quite a guy. Here I’m just a piker.”
    “Dr. Palmer, he’s not telling the truth.”
    “I know that, Mrs. Garrett.”
    “Richard, when he and I are alone, he calls me Hortense. He’s a cheeky son of a bitch.”
    “I like cheeky guys. They can sell.”
    He motioned for me to go on. It didn’t help matters that she snuggled to him, responding to his pats. But I gritted my teeth and said as if by rote. “However, big as Wilmington is, it’s not as big as the earth, and that’s the side of the puddle I’m offering her—you and her, but mainly her.”
    “The earth? What do you mean?”
    “Biography is international. The subjects aren’t all American, not by any means. One man