"No, sir, I won't. Thank you, sir."
#
The meeting was in a private room in a fancy restaurant, one that I'd been to before for an embassy Christmas party. Mama had drunk two glasses of sherry, and had flushed right to the neck of her dress. We'd had roast beef, and a goose wrapped inside a huge squash, the size of a barrel, like they grew on the Moon.
Pondicherry whisked through the lobby, and the main dining room, and then up a narrow set of stairs, without checking to see if I was following. I dawdled a little, remembering Pa laughing and raising his glass in toast after toast.
I caught up with Pondicherry just as he was ordering, speaking brusquely into the table. Another man sat opposite him. Pondicherry looked up at me and said, "Have you dined, boy?"
"No, sir."
He ordered me a plate of calf livers in cream sauce, which is about the worst thing you can feed a boy, if you ask me, which he didn't. "Sit down," he said. "Mr Nussbaum, Master James Nicholson. I am temporarily in loco parentis, until he can be sent home."
Nussbaum smiled and extended his hand. He was wearing a grey suit, with a strange cut, and a black tie. His fingers dripped with heavy gold rings, and his hair, while short, still managed to look fancy and a little sissy-fied. "Good to meetcha, son. You Lester's boy?"
"Yes, sir, he was my Pa."
"Good man. A damned shame. What are you doing here? Playing hooky?"