Sweat broke out over him; for several blocks he couldn’t remember which street led back to Market.
Beau was one of the luckless….
Two weeks after the termination of his dealings with Jake, two weeks of blessed relief after an at least temporary termination, Beau walked across the marble floor of the bank, on the way to lunch. He had decided, as usual—after a struggle, as usual—that he’d have two Manhattans and pork chops: weather was really cold now.
His eye detected a singular customer amongst the hurrying, queued scores, the dozens writing and blotting at the desk.
It was a very, very tall man, wearing two pairs of glasses, waiting in line at one of the “Trust Funds” windows.
It was John Jessup.
X-Day Minus Thirty
1
Some undistinguished men are heroes; some distinguished heroes are not men at all in the good sense of the name; and such a person was Kit Sloan. He was unaware of the defect as are thousands.
From his ancestors, he had taken his lithe, big body and the resilient “constitution” that went with it. From a forgotten forebear, probably a carefully forgotten one, he’d come by the