Children of Light by Robert Stone Page B

she was able, all other thoughts aside.
    A rapid knock sounded on the casita door. She rose, thoroughly annoyed, and opened it to find Jack Best, the unit publicist, and a writer named Dongan Lowndes, who was down to do a feature for a prestigious magazine and was not, one was forever being reminded, just another hack.
    In Lowndes’s company, Jack Best, who was just another flack, assumed an elevated diction.
    “Miss Verger,” he declared, “I’d like to introduce Mr. Dongan Lowndes. I’m sure you know each other’s work and I’m sure you’ll have a really interesting conversation.”
    Lowndes did not seem embarrassed. He was a tall man with a long narrow face; its up-country Scotch-Irish frankness was spoiled slightly by the smallness of his close-set brown eyes.
    Lu Anne and Dongan Lowndes shook hands; she gave him a sympathetic smile, which she noticed he did not return.
    “Shall we go in?” Jack asked. “I’ve ordered lunch sent down.”
    “Gosh, I’m sorry, Jack,” Lu Anne said. “I just spaced this interview. I was going to skip lunch and prep.” She turned to Lowndes, expecting that he would offer to go. He only stared at her, not unpleasantly, but quite fixedly. His stare might have been taken for one of polite interest had its object been other than human.
    Jack Best looked unhappy. In his book Lee Verger was not big enough medicine to space lunch dates with the highbrow press. Mr. Lowndes declined his assistance.
    “Well,” Jack said nervously to Lowndes, “we’ve got a bit of a condom here.”
    “I suppose,” Lu Anne said after a moment, “it must have washed up on the beach from town.”
    Lowndes kept his small eyes fixed on Lu Anne. “I bet you meant to say conundrum, didn’t you, Jack?”
    “Yeah,” Jack said quietly. He looked awestruck. “How could I have said that?”
    “There you are, Mr. Lowndes,” Lu Anne said. “Your first Hollywood malapropism.”
    “I’ve lived among ignorant people most of my life,” Lowndes told Lu Anne, “and I’ve never heard better.”
    “Well,” she said, “come in, guys.”
    “I’m really sorry,” Jack Best said. “I mean, Jesus, it just popped out.”
    “That’s O.K.,” Lowndes said. “Miss Verger and I know each other’s work and now we’re going to have a really interesting conversation.”
    “Are you going to stay, Jack?” she asked.
    The service wagon arrived, propelled by a waiter who wheeled it into the patio. Best stared at the floor, then stood up and helpedhimself to a glass of tequila. He looked at Lowndes, then at Lu Anne.
    “Come here, kid,” he said to her. He motioned her toward the door with a toss of his head.
    “Me too?” Lowndes asked.
    Best ignored him. Lu Anne followed the publicist outside.
    “So I look like a jerk,” Jack said. “Let him have me fired.”
    “The hell with him,” Lu Anne said kindly. “I mean, where’s your sense of humor?”
    “I’m supposed to stay with you. You want me to?”
    “I believe by now I can hold my own with the Dongan Lowndeses of the world.”
    “I humiliated myself in front of him,” Jack Best said through his teeth. “I’d like to punch his smart mouth.”
    “For heaven’s sake, Jack,” Lu Anne said, laughing, “it’s just a giggle. Forget it.”
    “He’s a rat, this guy,” Jack said. “You watch yourself. He’ll use everything you say against you. I know the kind of rat he is. The stupid thing I said—he’ll put that in.”
    “You know they’re not going to print that.”
    “You be careful. I mean, I oughta stay but I can’t stand him. I’ll kill the son of a bitch. Don’t tell him nothing, tell him your hobbies. See, Charlie doesn’t know—he’s out to screw us. Make us look funny.”
    “Well,” she said, “I’ll proceed from there.”
    Best gave her a dark look and went up the path.
    In his patio chair, Lowndes smoked a cigarette, ignoring the food before him.
    “You’re a wonderful actress,” he told Lu Anne.
    “Thank