SAVOIR FAIRE

There's a dark corner of the heart reserved especially for stories like this, for cautionary tales of the way we treat one another when we think nobody's looking. Sometimes it's with a gentle hand and a warm heart; sometimes we seek to break that hand and crush that heart instead. If there's anything I hate, it's the hypocrisy of those who can be kind by daylight and brutal by night. 

I wasn't looking for anything, really, at that time. Aimlessly wandering — well, that's not entirely true. I had an aim; I wanted my feet to touch every inch of the earth, to run my fingers through every every drop of ocean, to pour my breath into the cold, stale air of a winter's midnight. I'd been hanging around long enough to run out of artistic pursuits and humanitarian causes, and it was pure exploration left for me now. Completionism, in a way. Ticking off some mortally inspired checklist in case some sudden brushfire extinguished my life, or some errant axe took my head from my shoulders. 

I wound up on the west coast of the Americas, traveling my way up through Mexico into California, hitchhiking or hiring cars to get me as far north as San Diego before taking the train into Los Angeles. A lot had changed in the silver city, even if it looked similar to my eyes, tired and jaded and hungry for something to wake me up. Perhaps that's why, in a little rooftop bar overlooking the better part of downtown, I made the greatest mistake I'd made in almost a hundred years: I took the business card offered me, accepted a free drink, and joined Culver P. Aril at his table.

"It was Timothy," he confided to me, straightening the collar of his pinstriped jacket as he leaned in to shake my hand, "Changed it when I was twenty-two. They say you are what you eat, and I wanted all of the west side for my prix fixe."

It didn't make much sense, but I nodded along and took the old fashioned that had just appeared on a tray beside me. The waiter was gone as quickly as he'd come, closing the curtain behind him. Excepting his stiff, Armani-clad bodyguard, Aril and I had a surprising amount of privacy, and even the bodyguard was distracted by some of the patrons, peering through the gap in the curtain to watch some starlet or other and her Dachshund as the dog polished off what appeared to be a gold-leaf parfait.

"I've heard quite a lot about you, Mr. Wells," he continued, and I concealed a smile behind my drink. I'd been alone for so long, I'd nearly forgotten which alias I'd last used in the States.

"Good things, I hope."

"Perfect things, for what I hope to accomplish. The good, the bad, and the grey area."

I studied him — the places where the roots of his air bled from silver into drywall white, the delicately manicured nails at the end of each powerful finger absolutely drenched in Tahitian sunlight, the thousand dollar watch steadily ticking away time as if it, too, was under his command. 

"I really only came to the city for pleasure, Mr. Aril, not business."

"Can't we find a way to do both?"

He had a good smile, I'll give him that much — not good teeth in particular, but a way of drawing a warmth into his eyes that could convince the average person that he was entirely sincere.

"I had lunch with Braun and Wedge last week," he continued, and I recognized the name. Lawyers I'd worked with, once upon a time, when I fancied myself a novelist. "They said they'd heard you were in California again, and that I should absolutely take advantage of your fondness for scotch and your exceptional taste in music if I had anything worst showing."

I took another drink. "It sounds like you think you do."

"I own a little nightclub a few blocks from here, with a talent you simply cannot leave town without seeing. You'd be back in your hotel by midnight. Where are you staying?"

"I haven't had the opportunity to arrange accommodations just yet."

"Then one of mine, I insist — there's a suite with a clawfoot tub that will change your life. Rescued it from a French chateau, it's almost as old as I am."

He laughed, and I did too, at the thought that I might have met its original owners in their prime. Aril relaxed at seeing me smile, and sat back in his chair quietly, waiting expectantly. This was a man who knew that smart fish on a line are best left alone to make up their own minds.

I drained the rest of the old fashioned, chewing the cherry carefully, making him wait. There was not a single mortal man alive I feared, and in that bar so close to the stars overhead that I felt as though I could comb them through my hair or wear them as a crown, I shrugged.

"Very well then. One drink, one song."

"It'll be all you'll need," Aril replied, shaking my hand fervently, "I promise you."