wit—not dreary things like death and poverty and the tragedy of color. (Here he took his cigar out of his mouth and paused to contemplate the sleek white ceiling, the curl of blue smoke drifting toward same.) Now. On the other hand. If I could charm my way into the beating heart of the matter, if I could discover a few tender tidbits, say, an intimate royal secret or two, and render them into the kind of sophisticated prose that sent delight shivering down the Metropolitan reader’s superior spine . . . well then. For such a column, presented monthly, the Metropolitan might be willing to pay as much as two hundred dollars, plus expenses.
Having consumed nothing in the past twelve hours except a cup of coffee and a stale roll of brown bread, I thought perhaps I hadn’t heard him correctly. I began at a squeak, cleared throat, proceeded in husky drawl: Two hundred dollars?
Lightfoot tapped the end of his cigar in an ashtray and said, Plus expenses.
I clenched my hands together in my threadbare lap and said, Done.
Lightfoot then stretched his pinstriped arm to the intercom box on his desk and pressed the button for his secretary. Miss Brown would arrange everything, he said, airplane ticket and expense account, perhaps a small advance—here he passed a disdainful glance over my costume—for a tropical wardrobe. I rose from the chair and said thanks. He rose too and actually troubled himself to travel around the desk and plant a damp, cigar-infused kiss on my cheek, interestingly close to the corner of my mouth. For an instant, I caught the smell of his hair oil. He pulled back, and his two hands captured one of mine, and his brow settled down atop his blue eyes. Lightfoot was then sixty-two years old, and possessed but five more in his allotted share before a mighty stroke was due to topple him (inside the bathtub or his mistress’s bed, depending on whom you asked, and my money’s on the mistress) but on that June day in 1941, he could still stare you right down to the carpet, by God, make you feel the full weight of his parting words:
But no politics, Lulu. Politicians, naturally, but no politics.
Now, a half year later, his advice had lost none of its weight. I finished my coffee, stubbed out my cigarette, stared at the yellow envelope tucked beneath the saucer. The sun climbed higher in the sky. Even in December, when the soupy heat of midsummer had long since eased, the Nassau sunshine bathed you in a peculiar soporific warmth I have never experienced elsewhere. Just you and that sunshine, drenching your bones, while you stare at a yellow Western Union envelope that must be opened, sooner or later. The latest Lightfoot salvo.
I tugged the envelope free and opened it.
As I said, after consideration, I’d crossed out any mention of Japanese infamy from my December “Lady of Nassau” column, even though the duke and duchess had talked of nothing else at a Government House dinner party on December the eighth. (I still have the invitation card somewhere.) I mean, the Nazi invasion of Poland was one thing. But a dastardly sneak attack by wicked Orientals on an English-speaking people! I remember the duke just about spat with rage. The damned yellow disease is spreading right across the Pacific, he said. By God, I’d like to bomb those bloody Nipponese hoards myself. The fury in his voice was enough to boil the vintage claret in our glasses. The next morning, I sat before my typewriter and painted the scene just as you see above, just exactly as I remembered it. Because why? Because it was so singular, you know. No act of Nazi barbarity had ever inspired that kind of outrage from the Duke of Windsor, at least in my experience. You got the distinct impression that the Jews had had it coming, rather, what with their cunning attempts to control the world’s financial markets. So why this opprobrium for the Japanese? I just thought it was interesting, that’s all. An interesting conversation around a dinner table, perfectly suitable for the Lady of Nassau to report to her readers. I stared at the brutal words, the elegant paragraph, pencil between my teeth.
Then I unscrolled the paper from the cylinder, crumpled it, and started again.
And now? One week later, S. Barnard Lightfoot, having received said column—Japanese infamy carefully redacted—had fired off one of his telegrams. He had an opinion, it