The Love Potion Murders in the Museum of Man_ A Norman De Ratour Mystery - Alfred Alcorn [55]
“He’s saying, Dad, that he would like to do a music video in the museum.” Diantha spoke with an apologetic edge to her voice, as though embarrassed, as though, perhaps for the first time, seeing her paramour through my eyes.
I smiled indulgently. “Getting permission would be a problem, I’m afraid.”
The Rapper King turned a chair around and sat in it facing the desk, his chin propped on top of the back. “But you the top dog, Mr. Dude. I mean you bark and the others, man, they shit. You know what I’m saying?”
“It doesn’t quite work that way, Sixy. The curators have a very large say about what goes on in their collections, and I know what they’ll say.” My response didn’t seem to faze him in the least.
“I’m mellow with that, man.” He shook his gleaming skull. “This crib is totally killer, man. I mean cool with double K’s.”
It went on like this for a while longer until they finally took their leave. Diantha gave me another one of those kisses that stay on the lips. I’m not going to bring it up with her, of course, but I do think it would be for the best if she and Mr. Shakur were to part company. She deserves so much better. But I confess I would feel a proprietary sense regardless of whom she associated with.
At the same time, Mr. Shakur’s effect on me borders on disorientation. I felt I had been in touch with a different kind of consciousness, not necessarily lower, but off to the side, like off the edge, man. If I’m not careful, I’ll end up speaking like him.
Mr. Shakur’s productions came up later that afternoon when I went over to the Pavilion to drop in on a party for Marge Littlefield, who is retiring as comptroller of the MOM. She’s taking early retirement, because, she told me, she and Bill don’t need the income and she has grandchildren to enjoy.
Anyway, in the course of this little affair, held in what used to be the “rec room” for Damon Drex’s literary chimps, I ended up talking about Anglo-Saxon poetry with Maria Cowe’s assistant, a comely young woman with nervous eyes from Human Resources. She said she had just read a translation of Beowulf by the Irish poet … whose name escapes me now (a senior moment, Izzy would say). I remarked that I thought there were similarities between rap music, so called, and the rhythmic scheme in Anglo-Saxon poetry. As a demonstration, I proceeded to quote to her some of the lyrics Sixpak had shown me.
I was amazed to see this young woman blush quite red, stammer something, and on the flimsiest of pretexts turn from me and pretend to listen to people in another conversation. But then, I’ve come to accept that manners among young people and a lot of others aren’t what they used to be.
19
It’s been one of those days. I sit here in my perch at home like some old gangly bird full of hankerings more suitable to a man half my years. My unseemly yearnings stem in part from the “enhanced” video I received from Worried this morning showing the three people having sex in an office at the Genetics Lab. Worried e-mailed me last night, telling me I would find the tape in a bag labeled TOXIC next to the recycling area on the second floor. I was to remove the tape and replace it with an envelope containing $350, which I did, no questions asked.
I played the tape alone in the audiovisual room. You can imagine my surprise when I was able to identify the gentleman being fellated as none other than Professor Ossmann. What I found interesting was the manner in which he contorts his face as though in pain or from pleasure bordering on pain as he holds on to the back of the woman’s bobbing head. She had, as far as I could tell — it is a black-and-white print — thick blond hair done in a braid that fell to one side of her neck. The woman is, I’m willing to bet now, Celeste Tangent.
The gentleman behind her is tall, more slender than thin, with dark hair and very white buttocks,