Five Days by Douglas Kennedy Page A

man who had just joined behind me.
    I smiled.
    â€˜Yes, must be,’ I said.
    â€˜â€œX-ray people”,’ the man said again, shaking his head at this comment. ‘Makes it sound like 1950s sci-fi. Not that you were around in the 1950s . . .’
    â€˜Glad you think so.’
    â€˜I would say you were born in 1980.’
    â€˜Now that is flattery.’
    â€˜You mean, I got it wrong?’ he asked.
    â€˜By about eleven years, yes.’
    â€˜I’m disappointed.’
    â€˜By my age?’
    â€˜By my inability to guess your age,’ he said.
    â€˜That’s a major personal fault?’
    â€˜In my game it is.’
    â€˜And your game is . . .?’
    â€˜Nothing terribly interesting.’
    â€˜That’s quite an admission,’ I said.
    â€˜It’s the truth.’
    â€˜And the truth is . . .?’
    â€˜I sell insurance.’
    I now stepped back and got a proper look at this insurance man.
    Mid-height – maybe five foot nine. Reasonably trim figure – with the slightest hint of a paunch around his stomach. Graying hair, but not thinning hair. Steel-rimmed glasses in a rectangular frame. A dark blue suit – not particularly expensive, not particularly cheap. A mid-blue dress shirt. A rep tie. A wedding ring on his left index finger. He had a Samsonite roll-on bag in one hand, and a very large black briefcase on the floor next to it – no doubt filled with policy forms just waiting to be filled in as soon as he landed the necessary clients. I judged him to be somewhere in his mid-fifties. Not particularly handsome. Outside of the gray hair, not looking bloated or too weathered by life.
    â€˜Insurance is one of life’s necessities,’ I said.
    â€˜You should write my sales pitch.’
    â€˜I’m certain you’ve got a better one than that.’
    â€˜Now it’s you who’s flattering me.’
    â€˜And where do you sell insurance?’
    â€˜Maine.’
    I brightened.
    â€˜My home state,’ I said.
    Now he brightened.
    â€˜Born and bred?’ he asked.
    â€˜Absolutely. Heard of Damariscotta?’
    â€˜I live about twenty miles away in Bath . . .’
    I then told him where I’d grown up, also mentioning my years at U Maine.
    â€˜I’m a U Maine grad as well,’ he said – and we quickly discovered which dorms we lived in during our respective freshman years and that he was a business studies major at the college.
    â€˜I did biology and chemistry,’ I said.
    â€˜Far more brainy than me. So you’re a doctor?’
    â€˜What makes you guess that?’
    â€˜The two science majors, and the fact that there is a radiography convention this weekend at this hotel – and all you X-ray people are delaying my check-in.’
    That last comment came out with a smile. But I took his point, as there were fifteen people ahead of us and only two receptionists at work. We were going to be here awhile.
    â€˜So you’ve decided I’m an X-ray person,’ I said.
    â€˜That’s just deduction.’
    â€˜You mean, I don’t look like an X-ray person?’
    â€˜Well, I know I look like the sort of man who sells insurance.’
    I said nothing.
    â€˜See,’ he said, ‘guilty as charged.’
    â€˜Do you like selling insurance?’
    â€˜It has its moments. Do you like being a radiographer?’
    â€˜I’m just a technologist, nothing more.’
    â€˜If you’re a radiographic technologist, that’s a pretty important job.’
    I just shrugged. The man smiled at me again.
    â€˜Which hospital?’
    â€˜Maine Regional.’
    â€˜No kidding. Were you working there when Dr Potholm ran the department?’
    â€˜Dr Potholm hired me.’
    The man smiled and stuck out his hand.
    â€˜I’m Richard Copeland.’ He simultaneously handed me his business card.
    I took his hand. A firm grip. A