recoiled and a voice followed.
“You ought to pick up around here. I nearly twisted my neck, and everybody knows mornings aren't a good time to kick it.”
My eyes adjusted automatically out of shock. I saw a man with thinning black hair smoothed back with gel and a goatee. He was in an English rain slicker looking more like a rat than a man. It was Angelo, carrying some kind of shoulder bag, the shoulder strap of which he had let hang loose on my bed. He was sitting on the edge with a kind of vacant grin on his face, as if even he didn’t know why he was there or what to expect next.
“What the hell?” I croaked in these first words of waking.
“I thought you and I would get an early start on the day, maybe I’d show you the ropes…You know, trainee stuff.”
Angelo stood up and walked around, surveying the contents of the home he had just unlawfully entered, perhaps it not having occurred to him that there were alternate ways of calling on someone. I seriously suspected that, in his trade, it would have seemed unnecessary. He picked half-interestedly at my shelf of books, a meagre collection. He then peeked in the direction of the kitchen, asking me if we could rustle up some coffee and eggs.
“What… What gives you the right to just… enter and - “
“Hey, whoa, mister master of his domain… I’m just doing my job, and if you want to earn your pay with the boss, you better ease up a little on your bourgeois sense of propriety. We’re partners, you and I, and maybe it would suit you better to act accordingly. What kind of host are you, anyway? And would it kill you to pick up around here so I don’t twist my neck?”
Going on about his neck yet again. Would this be his stock phrase? Audaciously, he yanked the drapes open with such force that I thought he would rip them from their bar. “Gotta let some light in here, start the day. Rise and shine, and all that.”
“I… do not work well… under these rude conditions!” I said, gaining vocal momentum to roar, but only sounding whiny, grizzling ineffectually. “Castellemare told me nothing about having or needing a partner. I did not elect for this.”
I was standing now, shaking both with mounting anger and with the residual shock of rude awakening. The credibility of my anger and intimidation was being thwarted by my painful realization that I was in nothing else than my boxers with a cutesy balloon pattern. It was a bad day to let my laundry lapse.
“There’s a lot Castellemare did not tell you, but it isn’t his fault: he’s a busy man, you understand, and he can’t be bothered micromanaging his crew by going over all the small details. Hell, you should - and probably will - meet Setzer one day. Hope not. Forget I mentioned it. Nice shorts – where's your teddy bear?”
“So, this is just a little detail? Maybe he thought it unimportant to make this omission, but when I awake to a stranger sitting on the edge of my bed, I have a right to be jumpy and believe that this was a detail he ought to have communicated to me!”
Angelo had seemed to give up hinting at coffee, and was now motioning to go and make it himself.
“Suit yourself, grumpy, but you’d be hard pressed to have such a swank job with such sweet pay. Say, where do you keep the sugar in this joint? And, by the by, I am no stranger, bub. If anyone is the stranger in this operation, it’s you. I am not one to question my boss’ judge of character, but I have my reservations about you. You professorial types are all alike. Who said this?: 'crotchety stinkers to the very last, ornery natures unduly imbued with an unsubstantiated sense of entitlement and superiority.' Mornings don’t suit you very well, it seems. I'll make a note of that and try to remember to ring your butler a week in advance.”
“You have reservations about me?” I asked incredulously.
“Yeah, of course. I don’t trust you, and you have a massive pickle up your ass. Now get it in gear because
“You ought to pick up around here. I nearly twisted my neck, and everybody knows mornings aren't a good time to kick it.”
My eyes adjusted automatically out of shock. I saw a man with thinning black hair smoothed back with gel and a goatee. He was in an English rain slicker looking more like a rat than a man. It was Angelo, carrying some kind of shoulder bag, the shoulder strap of which he had let hang loose on my bed. He was sitting on the edge with a kind of vacant grin on his face, as if even he didn’t know why he was there or what to expect next.
“What the hell?” I croaked in these first words of waking.
“I thought you and I would get an early start on the day, maybe I’d show you the ropes…You know, trainee stuff.”
Angelo stood up and walked around, surveying the contents of the home he had just unlawfully entered, perhaps it not having occurred to him that there were alternate ways of calling on someone. I seriously suspected that, in his trade, it would have seemed unnecessary. He picked half-interestedly at my shelf of books, a meagre collection. He then peeked in the direction of the kitchen, asking me if we could rustle up some coffee and eggs.
“What… What gives you the right to just… enter and - “
“Hey, whoa, mister master of his domain… I’m just doing my job, and if you want to earn your pay with the boss, you better ease up a little on your bourgeois sense of propriety. We’re partners, you and I, and maybe it would suit you better to act accordingly. What kind of host are you, anyway? And would it kill you to pick up around here so I don’t twist my neck?”
Going on about his neck yet again. Would this be his stock phrase? Audaciously, he yanked the drapes open with such force that I thought he would rip them from their bar. “Gotta let some light in here, start the day. Rise and shine, and all that.”
“I… do not work well… under these rude conditions!” I said, gaining vocal momentum to roar, but only sounding whiny, grizzling ineffectually. “Castellemare told me nothing about having or needing a partner. I did not elect for this.”
I was standing now, shaking both with mounting anger and with the residual shock of rude awakening. The credibility of my anger and intimidation was being thwarted by my painful realization that I was in nothing else than my boxers with a cutesy balloon pattern. It was a bad day to let my laundry lapse.
“There’s a lot Castellemare did not tell you, but it isn’t his fault: he’s a busy man, you understand, and he can’t be bothered micromanaging his crew by going over all the small details. Hell, you should - and probably will - meet Setzer one day. Hope not. Forget I mentioned it. Nice shorts – where's your teddy bear?”
“So, this is just a little detail? Maybe he thought it unimportant to make this omission, but when I awake to a stranger sitting on the edge of my bed, I have a right to be jumpy and believe that this was a detail he ought to have communicated to me!”
Angelo had seemed to give up hinting at coffee, and was now motioning to go and make it himself.
“Suit yourself, grumpy, but you’d be hard pressed to have such a swank job with such sweet pay. Say, where do you keep the sugar in this joint? And, by the by, I am no stranger, bub. If anyone is the stranger in this operation, it’s you. I am not one to question my boss’ judge of character, but I have my reservations about you. You professorial types are all alike. Who said this?: 'crotchety stinkers to the very last, ornery natures unduly imbued with an unsubstantiated sense of entitlement and superiority.' Mornings don’t suit you very well, it seems. I'll make a note of that and try to remember to ring your butler a week in advance.”
“You have reservations about me?” I asked incredulously.
“Yeah, of course. I don’t trust you, and you have a massive pickle up your ass. Now get it in gear because
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