The Six Messiahs - Mark Frost [59]
After the first hour, the crowd merged into one bejeweled and black-tied thousand-headed beast, which put him at a distinct disadvantage as he circulated the floor; it seemed that once you'd been introduced to a person in this country, he could just walk right up and start talking to you. How ghastly! Flanks unprotected, vulnerable to attack from every direction, he felt like a partridge flushed into an open meadow.
And why weren't they sitting down to eat a proper dinner? Another American innovation, Innes explained, as they ducked behind a pillar: no big meal. Only enough champagne to float a gunship and an open field of raw mollusks. More circulation of the guests, less outlay of cash, and this way multiple affairs could be scheduled on the same night and the same four hundred socialites could attend them all without offending anyone by taking an early leave. What did it matter? thought Doyle. They'll all see each other an hour later at the next party, anyway. What an exhausting schedule to maintain; half their time spent dressing up to go out, the rest in transit hurtling through the night perpetually troubled by the nagging possibility that somebody somewhere else might be having a better time.
"Sorry about Pinkus, by the way," said Innes. "The way I behaved on board. Afraid I was quite taken in by him at first. My fault entirely."
"Quite all right," said Doyle, secretly delighted. "Happen to anyone."
"Visions of show girls dancing in my head; quite the silly ass—look lively, Arthur, trouble off the starboard bow."
Innes drew his attention to an approaching flock of matrons who had him locked directly in their sights, ravenous admiration firing their eyes; Doyle pretended not to notice their advance and took flight while Innes waded into their midst to stage a rearguard delay.
But in his haste to escape, Doyle strayed into a boxed thicket under a flight of stairs and found himself penned in by a wedge of sweaty faces, glowing with sun and unnatural health. Where was Pepperman? The Major had kept pace with Doyle as they made the rounds, repeating the name of each assailant as they closed in on him—why couldn't they wear little buttons printed with their names instead of these silly boutonnieres?—but he had been swept aside by the rush of some mad Italian tenor. Doyle could see the Major's shaggy head poking out of the fray nearby beyond his reach and he realized he would have to fend off the pugnacious, buck-toothed predator at the head of this pack alone. What was the man's name again?
Roosevelt? That was it. "Theodore: call me Teddy." Ruling-class family—although there weren't supposed to be any in this land of the free, it would take an idiot only one glance at this room to know differently. Roughly Doyle's age. Blunt and stubby as that fat cigar in his mouth, packing enough fearless will in his eyes to stare down a rhinoceros; fanatical eyes, magnified by thick lenses, jutting out of a perfectly square head.
Roosevelt had been introduced as the Commissioner of Something or Other, Parks or Commerce or the Interior of the Exterior. Americans made a national pastime of bestowing on each other titles that strung together like railroad cars, ripe with redundancy and a dearth of imagination. Vice Superintendent of the Assistant Commissioner's Office for Health and Safety Regulations. Administrative Supervisor of the Public Transit Authority, Horse and Buggy Department, Bootstraps and Stirrups Division. Nothing like the poetic lyricism of English offices: the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The Home Secretary. Viceroy of the Sub-Continent, The Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod.
"Been on a lecture tour," said Roosevelt, chomping maniacally on his cigar. "Boston, Philadelphia, Atlantic seaboard. Can't stray too far from home now; my younger brother died two months ago. Alcohol. Dissolute living. Epilepsy. Hallucinations. Confinement in sanitariums. Tried to throw himself out a window. Family's in turmoil. Dreadful.