Little Green Men Read Online Free Page B

head in mock horror at Banion's ruffling of presidential eagle feathers. And here, just behind him, came the Speaker of the House of Representatives, and behind him, the French ambassador. A triumph. Banion filled his lungs with scented candle air and exhaled the soft, sweet vapors.
    Val was clapping her hands. "Lunch, everyone, lunch!"
    THREE
    Monday mornings promptly at ten, Banion and his secretary, Renira, reviewed the previous week's mail and the coming week's schedule. She had read the mail to decide which of the approximately three to four hundred pieces warranted personal answers and had prepared an hour-by-hour summary of the week. Renira was British, and her voice could emasculate a phone caller by the final syllable of "Hello?" As a media figure, Banion believed it was his duty to have a listed telephone number. As a practical matter, he found this a colossal nuisance.
    Last week's mail contained the usual number of letters hailing Banion's brilliance; the usual number denouncing him as an intellectual bully; the usual asking for amplification on a point; the usual asking him to read "the enclosed" manuscript with a view to helping get it published; the usual asking him to speak, gratis, at an upcoming function (these were forwarded to Sid Mint, Banion's lecture agent, who would then inform them that Banion's fee started at $25,000); the usual number beginning with "You won't remember me, but . . ." (to which Renira would reply, "You are correct that Mr. Banion does not remember you"); the usual number of offers of commercial endorsement, generally for fountain pens, expensive leather briefcases, running shoes, luxurious writing paper, dictionaries, CD-ROMs, ocean liners, sports cars, and of course walking sticks, Banion's trademark eccentricity - some said affectation. (His collection included a cane made from the amputated leg bone of a Civil War soldier; it had belonged to John Wilkes Booth; another made from a bull's penis.) These received curt, offended form replies.
    A clothing store chain had recently offered $100,000 if he would be photographed wearing a pair of $29 dungarees. This offer Banion had wistfully considered. Of course he couldn't go hawking clothing -much less jeans. He never ventured outside his Georgetown house without a tie - but a hundred thousand smackeroos for an hour's work was significantly better than minimum wage. He declined, coolly, with the form letter, but it left him in a foul mood all day, calculating what he could have bought with the money. Christie's was holding a wine auction, and there were a few cases of 71 Romanee-Conti that had caught his eye, but ... no ... mustn't start doing that sort of thing. A number of Washington media bigfeet had started down that trail of late, hawking milk, credit cards. So undignified . . .
    Finally there were the usual number of letters from prisoners, many with death-row return addresses, proclaiming their innocence and requesting Banion's championship of their appeal. It is the dream of most journalists, and the stuff of Jimmy Stewart movies, to free an unjustly accused man from death row. This fantasy had never tantalized John O . Banion. No cream puff he, when it came to capital punishment. Indeed, he had attended a number of executions and written approvingly about them in his column - except in the unfortunate case when the man exploded in the electric chair. Dreadful business. He had written forcefully about the incident in his column, denouncing the competence of the prison, saying that any nation that could put a man on the moon ought to be able to devise a decent method of frying its felons. And now Ample Ampere, his own sponsor, had taken up the challenge and was about to unveil its new electric chair. Quiet, smokeless, efficient, energy-saving.
    This Monday. Renira reported that it was a moderately busy week, schedule-wise. ("Shed-yule," she pronounced it.) Breakfast Tuesday with Assistant Defense Secretary Coyne to discuss the