The Butt Read Online Free Page A

shiny back the tiny pustule of a Rice Krispie.
    ‘I don’t know what to say,’ Tom said at last, superfluously.
    ‘Really’ – Adams, having delivered his body-blow, was almost emollient – ‘the situation is nothing to worry about. So far as I’m aware Mr Lincoln is making a full recovery, no?’
    ‘When I left him early this morning, in the hospital, he was already sitting up in bed. To be honest, Mr Adams’ – Tom winced, he could hear the note of childish self-exculpation re-entering his voice even as he spoke – ‘I’m not even sure that his collapse has anything to do with the – the butt. I mean, he is very old.’
    Adams exhaled through pursed lips, and Tom was reminded of the first, satiated exhalation of the smoking day.
    ‘Well,’ the Consul said, ‘that’s good. Very good. If he makes a speedy recovery, it will simply be a matter of basic compensation for the Intwennyfortee, and the charges will quietly be dropped.’
    ‘Meaning?’ Tom thought of his credit cards, the plastic pacemakers on his avaricious heart.
    ‘I would expect her clan to ask for some new cooking pots, a couple of hunting rifles, maybe ten thousand dollars. These can be very practical people, Mr Brodzinski.’
    ‘What about Mr Lincoln himself?’ There it was again, the querulous note. ‘Don’t his wishes come into this? Couldn’t I, like, reason with him?’
    Again, the smokeless blow: ‘Er, no – not exactly.’ Adams leaned forward, steepling long, aristocratic fingers. ‘Certainly, Mr Lincoln’s goodwill is a desirable thing, but once he’s been harmed by another, he becomes inquivoo – which is to say, inert, passive in the matter. For the desert tribes, all important aspects of their existence are governed by this principle: when to act, and when to remain still. Astande and inquivoo. If–’
    Adams was warming to his little anthropology seminar. Tom cut him short: ‘What if Mr Lincoln gets worse – sicker, I mean?’
    ‘Let’s consider that eventuality if it happens, shall we?’ Adams hadn’t taken kindly to the interruption. He tapped the papers. ‘Sign and date, here, here and here. I need to lodge these papers right away at the Interior Ministry.’
    Tom picked up the fountain pen and did as he was told. Then he handed the pen and papers back to the Consul, who took a final slug of his coffee, then unfolded himself from beneath the table. Tom accompanied the long drip-dry streak of neatness out into the parking lot, feeling slobbish and juvenile in his short pants and sandals.
    Outside the sun was jackhammering down on whitish concrete, viridian grass, bluish blacktop. A mile or so to the south, the pale blocks of Vance’s civic centre – the big hotels, municipal and corporate offices, the hypodermic spire of the Provincial State Assembly – flapped in the convection, as if they were the sails of an urban clipper, about to cast off from this protracted and alien shore. Beyond them, the green hills of the Great Dividing Range mounted, in a seemingly endless procession of lush dips and heavily forested spurs, to the horizon.
    Tom was surprised to discover that, far from driving one of the ubiquitous SUVs which anyone of consequence in Vance – Anglo, Tugganarong or native – owned, Adams had a distinctly battered old Japanese hatchback. He slung his briefcase on to the back seat of this, then took off his seersucker jacket and folded it with precise movements. Before getting into the car, he turned to Tom. ‘Where, may I ask, are your wife and children?’
    ‘I think they went downtown. We’re scheduled to fly home tomorrow, and the kids wanted to see the terrarium, and . . .’ he said, tripping into despondency, ‘. . . a whole lot of other stuff.’
    Adams ignored this remark. ‘Do you have a local cellphone, Mr Brodzinski?’
    ‘No, and my own can’t use the local networks.’
    ‘Then I suggest you, ah, rent one; you may be needing it. Also, you need to consider the possibility of