The Evolution of Bruno Littlemore - Benjamin Hale [198]
Leon piloted the wood-paneled Wagoneer through the narrow roads, runs, drives, lanes, and culs-de-sac of the posh Westchester suburb. One after another, we passed Tudor-style mansions surrounded by oaks and sprawling swaths of green lawn and topiaries.
“Ignorant baboon!” grumbled Leon. “How in the blazes could you possibly know? All of these stately pleasure domes look nearly identical to me!”
We had been driving around for hours, and it was about six in the evening when we rolled past the house, and the telltale wave of déjà vu I’d been hoping for finally came to trigger my recognition of it. There indeed stood the white and brown and brick Tudor-style house, which I was certain was little Emily’s.
“There! That one!” I shouted, the tip of my long purple index finger squished against the glass of the passenger-side window. “I’m sure of it!”
We parked a little ways down the street, out of sight around a bend in the road, in order to avoid raising any undue suspicions as to why two fancy Broadway casting directors should arrive in such a déclassé mode of transport as Leon’s ex-wife’s Wagoneer. The lights in the house were on, and there seemed to be human activity going on inside of it. We saw the shadow of a person moving in the ground floor windows. It was autumn, and the trees lining the road were ablaze with color. We hiked down the leaf-scattered road, past a mailbox—noting the name GOYETTE printed on the side of it—and up the walk that led through the lawn and garden to the front door, Leon with his hair neatly combed back and his beard freshly trimmed, the officious-looking attaché case swinging freely in his fat fist, and I beside him. Leon depressed a sausagelike finger into the doorbell, and soon that same tiny yellow dog appeared in the narrow frosted-glass window beside the front door, yapping its miserable little head off. In a moment a woman’s face peered out the same window at us, her hand cupped against the glass to see outside, her eyebrows knit in an expression belying confusion tinted faintly with apprehension. She opened the door just a tiny squeak ajar, and the dog shot forth as if from the muzzle of a cannon, and commenced to scurry circles around our feet, growling, yapping, baring every tooth in its small furry head.
“Good evening, Mrs. Goyette,” said Leon in a voice as officious-sounding as the attaché case looked, offering a moist pudgy paw for a handshake.
“Hello?” the woman said, opening the door slightly wider. Her voice had a slight rasp. We could tell by the change in her face that we’d gotten the name right. Mrs. Goyette was in her late forties. She was short and considerably fat. Her clothes were clean and fashionable. A fleshy neck supported a roundish head with dark-dyed hair and a broad face with a sharp nose and a wide mouth that inclined toward elastic shifts in expression.
“I am Leon Smoler, and this is my associate, Mr. Bruno Littlemore.” I nodded in assent. “We have come on a very important and exciting matter of business concerning your daughter, Emily.”
The woman’s hand flew to her mouth and her eyes bugged as she gasped: “Oh my God—is something wrong?”
Leon summoned a belly roar of dismissive laughter.
“Of course not! Quite to the contrary. We represent the Shakespeare Underground, an experimental theatrical production company.”
The look of alarm on the woman’s face was replaced with a look of hesitant distrust.
“We are extremely interested in your daughter’s considerable acting talent.”
“Are you talent scouts?”
I shook my head no and was about to speak.
“Yes,” said Leon, “in a manner of speaking.”
She invited us in. Leon and I seated ourselves on a couch by a fireplace, and she asked us if we wanted coffee.
“Yes, please,” Leon called. She was in the kitchen. Leon and I waited on the couch in silence, looking around at the various bric-a-brac in the house and listening to the ticking of a grandfather clock and the chains jangling against its pendulum. The room was partially lit by the frenetically flickering bluish glow of a TV, but the