Middle Men by Jim Gavin Page B

privilege or a chore. It was fun standing in the kitchen of a famous man, but he worried that, even just standing there, he was doing something wrong. It was probably rude, he thought, not asking Max more questions about himself. He couldn’t think of anything to ask, so he continued to stand there, stiff and mute. Max quietly examined every page, reading the fine print, making checkmarks; but then, suddenly, he raised his head and grabbed a spiral notebook that was sitting on the desk next to his charity documents.
    â€œYou mean this?” said Max.
    â€œWhat?” said Adam. “I didn’t say anything—”
    â€œJust a bit of divertissement ,” said Max, shrugging. He stood up. “Do you know who Ravaillac was?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œHe was an assassin. He killed Henry IV of Navarre, which helped precipitate the Thirty Years’ War. Of course, this had a lasting effect on the Low Countries, both good and bad.” Max opened the refrigerator and grabbed a Diet Rite. “Do you want one?”
    â€œSure.”
    Max closed the refrigerator, opened his soda, and leaned against the counter. Adam wasn’t sure if Max had heard him or if he was supposed to just grab his own soda. He decided to stay put.
    â€œI’m addicted to the stuff,” Max said. “I know it’s a big joke at the office. They think I don’t know, but I know.” Max took a long gulp of his soda and wiped his mouth. “Now, we’re talking about a fascinating moment in history. Dueling monarchies, religious turmoil, it was all happening. And into the middle of it stepped a frothing lunatic named Ravaillac.”
    He paused for another gulp, and then said, “Am I writing a book? Yes, of course, but sometimes I think, why bother? Who would read it? A few specialists maybe, but so what?”
    Max crushed the empty can, tossed it into one of the grocery bags, and for the next hour he set the scene in seventeenth century Europe, describing the lineage of all the major players and their subsequent territorial disputes. Adam dimly followed the action. The Hapsburgs were involved and, apparently, so was the Margrave of Brandenburg. Henry IV, the King of France, sent a cipher to somebody—Gustavus Adolphus?—saying he was planning war against the Hapsburgs. But Hapsburg agents intercepted the cipher, decoded it, and made plans to assassinate him. The phone rang, but Max, on a roll, didn’t seem to hear it. As he flipped through his notebook to double-check something, Adam marveled at his small and intricate handwriting. The margins were filled with notes and each page was richly adorned with umlauts and cedillas.
    â€œOn the afternoon of May 14, 1610, Henry was riding along the Rue Saint-Honoré in his coach—while the grand machinery of an enemy kingdom was plotting his demise, andwhile his own army was planning a massive strike—when, out of nowhere, Ravaillac, a complete nonentity, who had absolutely nothing to do with the Hapsburg plot, jumped into the coach and stabbed the king to death with his rapier!”
    Max burst out laughing. Adam started to laugh too, but the phone rang again and Max’s eyes narrowed in annoyance. He put down his notebook and handed Adam the papers he had signed. “The recycling,” he said, snapping his fingers at the bags. “Help me bring them out to the bins. Otherwise it’s ant city in here.”
    Adam picked up half the bags and Max sat down at the desk.
    â€œThrough there,” he said, pointing. “Open the garage and drag the bins to the end of the driveway.” He picked up the phone. “What the fuck do you want, Joanne? It’s two in the afternoon.”
    The smell of skunk was especially strong in the garage, which was vacant except for the trash and recycling bins. Adam, in his argyle socks, couldn’t see a single drop of oil on the cement slab. He dumped the bags and went back to the