Little Green Men Read Online Free Page A

natty today in a houndstooth blazer, dark blue shirt, French silk tie with little framed paintings - how appropriate - gold collar pin. He wore his hair slicked back at the sides in the manner of the athletically wealthy.
    "Is that blood on your shoes?" Tyler grinned.
    "He'll survive," said Banion airily.
    "Can't wait to see the seating plan at your dinner for him."
    "If he comes," said Bitsey, looking even more alarmed than usual. "Val says they'll cook up some last-minute crisis just to cancel."
    "This administration doesn't have to cook up a crisis. They come naturally."
    "Here's how to solve that," said Tyler in a lowered voice. "I happen to know that Orestes Fitzgibbon is going to be in town that day." Orestes Fitzgibbon, the Anglo-Greek financier, now a naturalized American citizen - owing to a tax problem - had recently purchased Immensa Corporation for $7 billion. He was known to be impulsively generous with his money - in part, it was said, because it infuriated his numerous ex-wives. "He's presenting us with a third El Greco. Why don't you invite him to your dinner? I doubt the president would be late if he knew Fitzgibbon was going to be at his table. He sat next to Senator Rockefeller two years ago and wrote him a campaign check for a million - on the spot."
    "Oh God, that would completely solve it," said Bitsey. "Can we get him on this short notice?"
    Tyler smiled.
    "I'm not really his biggest admirer," Banion said. "I'm glad he's giving you all those El Grecos, but I sat next to him at an Erhardt Williger dinner, and frankly I found him kind of rough around the edges."
    "Oh, Jack," said Bitsey, "don't be such a stick." Bitsey had been to so many dos at the British embassy that she had started to sound like a subject.
    "I'm sowing marital discord," said Tyler. "You two sort it out and let me know."
    "It's decided," said Bitsey.
    Clare Boothe Luce had introduced them. Tyler was originally Australian. His father had made some vast, murky fortune selling the adductor muscles of giant clams – Tridacna gigas - to aging, impotent Formosans who thought they would help them get the old noodles to stiffen, then laundered that ill-gotten fortune in opals, oil, ranching, and vineyards. Young Tyler was sent off to English boarding school at an early age to be sodomized and otherwise inculcated into the British establishment. He'd gone on to Cambridge and then became a protege to Sir Anthony Blunt, Surveyor of the Queen's pictures at Buckingham Palace, Windsor, and Hampton Court, and, as it turned out, Soviet agent. It came as rather a shock that the man who had educated the monarch on the subtleties of Poussin had been whispering state secrets to the KGB's London rezident. Tyler moved on and married the high-stepping, troubled daughter of Sir Reginald Pigg-Vigorish. Sir Reg was up for a life peerage just about the time their divorce was announced and, not eager for his daughter's shall we say peculiar sexual antics to become tabloid fodder, settled a few spare Cezannes on his son-in-law to ensure his discretion. The divorce was settled quietly. Tyler sold the Cezannes to L'Orangerie museum in Paris for an undisclosed sum ($8.7 million) and left for America and the curatorship of the prestigious Fripps Gallery. His social luster was enhanced by the fact that he was close to the Prince of Wales. Banion was trying to enlist Tyler's help in getting the prince on Sunday. What a coup that would be. Well, there was no point arguing with Bitsey over having that oversexed troll Fitzgibbon to dinner. It was, as Bitsey had made plain, decided. Had the two of them rehearsed this little dance?
    But here was Tony Flemm, host of the second-rated Washington show, trying not to look jealous. "Jack. Nice show."
    "Do you think? I don't know."
    That's right, torture the poor bastard, make him explain, make him elaborate in front of everyone on just why he thought it was such a good show. But wait, here came Burton Galilee, beaming, shaking his