Bunny

Right before the Stooping Man to the open door of his car, a man in a grey coat and hat stepped forward towards him with a small thin envelope of white paper in his gloved hand. The Stooping Man, right by the car door, paused to accept the envelope.

Inside the car, he is seated. With the car door open, he unseals the envelope and withdraws the folded piece of paper. The message is in typed script:

Here and ready.

   Pres

The Stooping Man puts the envelope in his inside coat pocket.

Later his car pulls on to Wall Street and stops in front of the building of gargoyles. There the driver parks and opens the door for him. He steps out onto the curb, puts on his hat, and gives a momentary expressionless glance towards the top of building before going inside.

Inside an sunlit room, with several comfortable lounge chairs next to each other, the man who had come in from Greenwich by car, and the man who had entered the elevator with a case, are sitting in chairs. They are smoking cigarettes. There are standing ash trays next to the chairs. On the walls are framed black-and-white photographs of ancient collegiate and prep school male sports teams and players. Yale is written on one of the uniforms.

The man from Greenwich is speaking to other one,

The thing of it is---the kids. You hate to say to see a guy do that to his family. Pariahs. That's what they will be.

In the hallway outside the office, the elevator arrives and a bell is heard.

The man from Greenwich pauses, having heard it.

"Bill's here," he says to the other.

"You always have the knack."

"Pfft. I timed it, from when the messenger came back. But we'll see. He looks at his watch, as if timing something."

He signals to the other man and put out their cigarettes, and they stand up out of their chairs.

As they do so, and turn, they see the Stooping Man standing in the doorway, smiling and looking at them.


"Hey there!" Pres says to Bill, and shakes his hands, the way a close friend shakes the hand of a man he has not seen in a long time. Knight steps up behind Pres and does the same, shaking Bill's hand.

"Long time no see," says Pres to him, punctuating each syllable like reciting an Indian chant.

Bill throws his head back in a silent chuckle and brings his jaw back down level. He looks up at the photographs on the wall. He sighs deeply and looks back at the other two men.

"A fine college reunion this is," says Bill, who steps forward to the middle of the room, between the two other men.

"Is my brother here yet?...No wait, I know he isn't..." he pauses, "but here he comes."

He motions towards the door, with a grin, and almost on cue a boisterous bustle in heard from a nearby room---greetings, hello, hey there. 

The man who comes in the door is in his  Forties, balding to the point of just having a tuft of hair on time. He is grinning wide, and animated in his motion, playful and sanguine.

"Bill!" he says, and he grabs hold of the Stooping Man with a tight embrace. The Stooping Man, in his embrace, smiles back at him.

"How's merry old London?" the bald man says to him. "I here they are having a war over there."

He leans a little closer and whispers, "You didn't start it, did you?" and then breaks out in laughter, and the others laugh with him.

"Bunny, thankfully you have not changed one bit in my absence."