Page 23 of Bred Mate
“You didn’t have an appointment,” the secretary says.
Smash!
That’s a bottle being broken over the back of my head. I drop to my knees as pain bursts across my skull. Bits of glass are stuck in my scalp. I can feel it.
“Ah, hell, Margaret. That was a good bottle of port,” Rainer Katsoff says. “I’m sorry, Mr. Dulac, my secretary can be overzealous in the matter of scheduling appointments.”
I rise to my knees slowly, put my hand to the back of my head, and sure enough feel thick chunks of bottle glass in my goddamn head. I turn toward the woman slowly. I didn’t really look at her on the way in. I saw a vague female shape and an old lady blouse and I figured she wasn’t worth a second glance.
This is the second time in my life a woman has gotten the drop on me. Twice in a week, it feels like. I must be losing my edge.
She’s not as old as I thought she was. She’s older than me, younger than Rainer. She’s dressed older than she is. I wonder if it’s on purpose. I wonder if she’s dressed the way Rainer thinks a lady should be dressed. She’s got dark hair tied up in a bun, and dark eyes half-hidden behind thick round glasses. Something about this tells me she’s hiding. I don’t know what, but it’s like looking at an animal in disguise.
I breathe deep.
There’s a certain lack of surprise from the man that makes me think he knows her well enough to expect things like this. Maybe he even wants it.
Yeah. I see a glint of excitement in his eyes. He likes what she just did. Not sure he ordered her to do it. Not sure that he had any idea it would happen, but he’s stoked it did.
“Lady, what is wrong with you?” I ask the question because I can’t hit her. Want to. Never would.
She looks down at me, her voice cold and hard. “Menopause,” she says. “Don’t ever fuck with a woman over forty, little man. You don’t know what you’ll get.”
Rainer lights a cigar and sits back in his chair.
“I’d like to make an appointment,” I say, standing up. I’ll have a bruise on the back of my head, but I can respect that kind of violence. I treated her like she was nothing, and I figured out she was more than that.
“Let him make one,” Rainer says, exhaling smoke he never inhaled. Pointless fucking activity.
“I came to make you an offer on a patch of forest,” I say.
“Would you like an ice pack?” Margaret makes the offer with apparent kindness. She seems so nice now she’s not wielding a bottle like a fucking maniac, but I know how psychos operate, and I know a smile doesn’t really mean anything.
“I’ll be alright, thank you.”
“Coffee? Tea?”
I wouldn’t accept a drink from this woman. There’d be arsenic in it.
“No. Thank you.”
“Perhaps a chair, then, sir. More comfortable than the floor, or so I am told.”
I take the chair I’m offered, reaching back to pluck bits of glass out of my head.
Maybe I was wrong. Maybe these people are fucking animals after all. Interesting. I start to get a sense of excitement I didn’t expect to have. I thought it’d be boring dealing with financial things. I figured we’d have some dry, polite conversation and I’d wish I was anywhere else doing anything else.
I didn’t expect to be treated like I was in a bar fight by a woman who looked like she stepped out of a catalog ad for adult diapers. She’s wearing a fucking floral chiffon skirt, for fuck’s sake.
Maybe people are more interesting than I gave them credit for. I’m going to have to think about that once I get out of here.
“Now, what did you want to talk about that was worth tangling with Margaret?” Rainer asks.
“There’s a patch of forest down by the river that’s being logged. I’d like to make an offer on it.”
He leans back and puffs his cigar, looking at me as if I don’t have the money. I’m not dressed fancy and businesslike. I’m wearing a leather jacket, a shirt that was clean before I got the blood of his workers on it, and jeans that are covered in river mud. I guess I look like a mess.
“And what offer would that be?” He asks the question like he’s indulging me.
