The Counterfeit Murder in the Museum of Man_ A Norman De Ratour Mystery - Alfred Alcorn [63]
“There seems to be fewer of them.”
He shook his head. “The real advantage is that white males have no one else to blame when they screw up. No handy scapegoats, no excuses, no point in whining. That, my friend, is real empowerment.”
12
It was a fine, summery afternoon, the Fourth of July weekend, and I was in a foul mood. Diantha was furious at me yet again. I told her I had to stay in town with Alphus as all my careful plans to have him taken care of had collapsed. “Norman,” she hissed at one point, “I am a young, normal, healthy woman. I need a man.”
Getting a “keeper” for Alphus has proven to be a tricky business. Ape-sitting is not the same as dog-sitting or even babysitting. I suppose I could just let him be by himself. He knows that if he leaves the house unattended, he could be captured and possibly killed. Worst of all, he might end up in the Middling County Zoo, where there are real leopards. But Alphus likes to have someone around he can converse with, that is, someone who can sign. There’s always Ridley, but the young man, as Millicent attested, is not reliable. That means I not only have to get him someone like a graduate student from the university, but also allow him to have visitors from Sign House.
When I intimated very gently to Diantha the possibility of bringing Alphus out to the cottage with me, she could scarcely speak such was her anger. “I watched that beast killing and eating that little dog. God, Norman, you want to subject your child to that! You must be losing it.”
I did not tell her that I suggested bringing Alphus with me because he had broached the subject earlier. In vain I tried to explain to him that my wife did not feel comfortable around chimpanzees. “Or around monkeys for that matter,” I added, to make general any possible offense.
“I am not a monkey,” he signed with emphatic indignation.
Later, in trying to make amends, I said, “there are mountain lions in the area.” As I believe there are.
“Mountain lions?” he questioned, making up the compound with the sign for mountain and the one for lion.
I nodded. “They are big yellow cats that feed on deer and … well, whatever they can catch. They have also been known to attack and kill people.”
“As big as leopards?”
“About the same size. Perhaps a little smaller.”
That mollified him, but did little for my peace of mind. I decided to bring him with me into the office to get some work done. To wax parenthetical for a moment, I am always amused by those detective narratives in which the principals do little but drive around and meet each other and talk about the crime to be solved. Rather like a Henry James novel in which the characters appear to subsist on little but their refined sensibilities. Nor do fictional private eyes ever get sick or go to the dentist to undergo the indignities of a root canal. At worst, they suffer a kind of tidy angst well suited to Hollywood. But I digress.
Among other things, I had to prepare for a meeting of the Council of Curators on Monday. And while that may not seem like much, I can see that once again Mr. de Buitliér is persisting in efforts to build a bureaucracy where none is needed. The second item on the agenda he sent around reads, “Report of the committee on the motion to form a committee to consider the feasibility of establishing a department of curatorial services within the museum.” It went on from there, mentioning necessary curatorial services, staffing requirements, departmental coordination, synergistic opportunities, and, the red flag, budgetary necessities.
The committee to study the formation of a committee to consider founding a department had been my ploy to stall the whole dismal process of bureaucracy building. Use the system to clog the system, I say. The question is how much longer can I resist, given my compromised position and the necessity for some kind of