Page 44 of By Any Means

“You know, I believe you.”

Chary spun his cup in its saucer, then pulled it close again. Laurie could not be there, demanding answers, turning observant, calculating eyes onto his home, onto him, but he was. He didn’t seem keen on leaving, and Chary couldn’t insist he do so without waving a white flag of suspicion.

Chary had better make the best of it. But how?

Of the two of them, August had—historically—been the one who could look at a situation and know how to mold it to his will. To make it better. At first, Chary had seen it as nothing but a cheerful (and usually tipsy) bravado of the naturally confident, but August had escaped a children’s asylum, then the alleys of Paris, then London’s underbelly before finding his way back home to New York. It hadn’t been optimism or bravado that’d carried him through all of that. August employed a flexibility he’d been forced to discover in himself in order to survive. Make the best of it or succumb.

“Look, Chary,” he’d said two years earlier, standing in the Fifth Avenue foyer, far removed from his history—Fridays were theatre nights, and he would drag Chary along—applying red-rouge lip paint with a ring-finger pad. He didn’t use much, not enough to look painted for purpose, just a little to look pale and bitten. “People will tell you whatever you ask. Even what they want from you. Well,” he’d smiled slyly, “as long as they know it. Just ask. An’ once you know what they want, everythin’s easy.”

At the time, Chary had opened his mouth to ask about Raberding, if Raberding knew what he wanted from August, and what it was, if August knew, too. It was new between them, though, so, surely, there was not yet any making-best.

There hadn’t been. Yet.

Today, he wasn’t sure asking would work on Laurie, but he figured he ought to try.

“The staff should be arriving any minute. How am I to explain your presence here, Laurie Tulley?”

(He heard an imaginary August groan. “You can’t come at it sideways, Chary!”)

“You must have a plan, I mean,” Chary revised.

Laurie raised eyebrows. “Do I have a plan? I figured you’d explain me away the obvious way. You’re open with the domestics, aren’t you? Paid up to their eyeballs?”

“Yes.” Chary nodded stiffly. “I rather have to be, thanks to the papers. Men of your very profession.” He set down the cup. “You want to pose as my lover? Rather self-assured, aren’t you? What if I don’t agree?”

(“Better,” crowed imaginary August. Chary almost wished he had flesh-and-blood August in the room with him now.)

“Why wouldn’t you? If you’re open with them, doesn’t it make sense I’d be… y’know… that kind of friend?”

It did make sense. Not that they couldn’t merely be friends, but Maine wasn’t exactly the straight-shot of the Hamptons. It was a long way to visit with an unserious acquaintance.

But what could Laurie want from this, truly? To be closer to him? The answers he sought wouldn’t be found doing that. He’d already confessed he’d discarded the idea of seducing him for his story. He didn’t want to do that. Chary didn’t want him to do it. Furthermore, Chary was sufficiently insulated against it by now. Forewarned. Wasn’t he?

“Today, you don’t fear associating with me?” he challenged.

“Oh, geez. Chary, I said what those asshole reporters wanted to hear.”

“Yes,” Chary said coolly. “Precisely.”

Laurie drew back. “All right. It’s your decision. It’s just more of the same undercover work for me. Tell them I’m a hunting friend, then. Whatever.” He feigned a stretch while Chary sat there, quietly, irrationally hurt, then bent to sort through the usual basket of periodicals that Brasher kept for him on the table.

Laurie walked his fingers through newsprint, gathering greasy ink-black. “Whoa. Chicago, San Francisco, London… Times of India? South China Morning Post? D’you do nothing but read? Or is there another copy of you here somewhere?”

Chary didn’t know what to say to this. Everything was damning. Yes sounded presumptuous and frankly privileged. No sounded defensive and was dishonest. To be unnerved by the question was worst of all.

“Aside from the fifty hours’ shiftwork, that is,” Laurie mused.

“Work… is a virtue?” Chary tried.

“No, it isn’t.” Laurie smiled. “You got me there.” He sat, having settled on Wall Street Journal, of all things. “You’ve not been taking in the success literature? It isn’t meant for you, y’know. Strictly middle-class fodder.”

“No?”

“No. Not meant for you at all. Funny enough, it didn’t go so well with workingmen, either. The powers don’t want us getting too above our station. Work too hard, make too much money, and suddenly, you’re where you’re not s’posed to be.”

Chary said nothing, as clearly Laurie found him to be the powers in this situation.

“You, Mr. Wright,” he said, “are who’s meant to put it on posters for your employees. Musclemen in jean overalls, shirtless.” He bit into a pastry and said, mouth full, “Improves morale.”