Page 112 of The Laughing Game

“Certainly.”

Gideon glanced at me and rolled his eyes.

When we went inside the store, a young man with nerdy glasses and a nose piercing, in jeans and a white button down, welcomed us.

“Hello, Soresh. Is Alice here today?”

“Hey, Vihaal! Great to see you. Yes, she’s in the back, talking to—” He adjusted his glasses and looked in the direction of the back office. “Well,arguing, with Dominic.” He shrugged. “Aboutsomething.”

“Hmm,” Vihaal said. “I’m here to speak to Dominic as it turns out. And afterwards, to Alice,” Vihaal said. He cocked his head at Soresh. “How long have you been working here? I’m afraid time passes so strangely these days…”

“Oh, I’ve been here for about six months now. But I only work three days a week.”

“Hmm. Are you interested in more hours?”

Soresh blinked. “Absolutely. Yeah.”

Vihaal smiled. “I’d love you to work for me full-time. We can draw up the paperwork next week. Alice will let you know your exact schedule.”

“Thank you. That’s fantastic. Oh, wait…not Dominic?”

Vihaal only smiled. “Are there any customers in here?”

We couldn’t see any but there were a couple of other rooms to the space.

“Not at the moment,” Soresh replied.

“Excellent. Can I please get you to put a sign on the door that we are closed, and will reopen at the usual time tomorrow?”

“Yes. Of course,” Soresh said, gazing back and forth between the three of us.

“Once I leave, please take the rest of the day off. You’ll get paid for your entire shift, of course.”

“Oh, okay. Thanks.” Soresh gazed at me and Gideon, so many questions in his eyes.

“Come on, gentlemen,” Vihaal said to us.

I thought about the conversation Vihaal had had with his father, and the things the man had said to him. It had taken three tumblers of good bourbon for V to open up. It seemed that his father was jealous of Vihaal’s success and also angry that he hadn’t married and provided grandchildren. The homophobic slurs that had wounded Vihaal over the phone had been vicious and Vihaal had ended up cutting off the call and severing all remaining ties. He was obviously deeply hurt, although he tried to shrug it off. I figured it would take a while for him to come to terms with the betrayal.

We followed him through the store to the back room, where we could hear Dominic and Alice arguing with rising irritation on both sides. The door was ajar. Alice could be seen standing with her hands on her hips and a fed-up expression on her face.

“The store has to be kept at that temperature and humidity for valid reasons, Dominic. You can’t turn the furnace down because you’re too hot. Roll up your sleeves or something.”

“Do you have to be so fucking controlling? The furniture isn’t that sensitive,” Dominic muttered.

Alice saw us out of the corner of her vision. She turned and blinked in surprise.

“Vihaal. Dominic and I were just discussing temperature and humidity,” she said. “Which is very important when it comes to antique furniture, wouldn’t you say?”

“Hello, Alice. Yes, vitally important, in fact. Why?”

“Well, you see, Dominic keeps turning the temperature down because he’s too hot. And I’m trying to convince him that that isn’t a good idea,” Alice said.

“As a matter of fact, I need to speak to Dominic.”

Alice smiled. “Of course.” She moved to leave, but Vihaal shook his head.

“Please stay.”

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