“You know everybody in this town?” I asked him a bit later.
He chuckled. “I do a lot of business here.”
“Really? It seems a pretty small town.”
“Yes, but that’s deceptive. It is the state capital. There’re a lot of people here buying what we’re selling.”
“So you’re out this way a lot?”
He nodded. “It’s one of the hottest spots on my circuit.”
“How do you manage all this business when you’re out hiking in the woods?”
He looked up from the small battle formation he was creating from the things on the table. He smiled.
“I’ve got to have a little recreation,” he said. “I get tired of cities and offices. I have to get away and hike around, or canoe or kayak or something like that-or I’d go out of my gourd. In fact, that’s one of the reasons I built up the business in this town-quick access to a lot of good places for that stuff.”
“You know,” he continued, “it’s such a nice night we ought to take a drive, let you get a feeling of what I mean.”
“Sounds good,” I said, stretching my shoulders and looking for our waiter. “But isn’t it too dark to see much?”
“No. The moon’ll be up, the stars are out, the air’s real clear. You’ll see.”
I got the tab, paid up, and we strolled out. Sure enough, the moon had risen.
“Car’s in the hotel lot,” he said as we hit the street. “’This side.”
He indicated a station wagon once we were back in the parking lot, unlocked it, and waved me aboard. He drove us out, turned at the nearest corner, and followed the Ala meda to the Paseo, took a right leading uphill on a street called Otero and another onto Hyde Park Road. From then on traffic was very light. We passed a sign indicating that we were heading toward a ski basin.
As we worked our way through many curves, heading generally upward, I felt a certain tension going out of me. Soon we had left all signs of habitation behind us, and the night and the quiet settled fully No streetlights here. Through the opened window I smelled pine trees. The air was cool. I rested, away from S and everything else.
I glanced at Luke. He stared straight ahead, brow furrowed. He felt my gaze, though, because he seemed to relax suddenly and he shot me a grin.
“Who goes first?” he asked.
“Go ahead,” I answered.
“Okay. When we were talking the other morning about your leaving Grand D, you said you weren’t going to work anywhere else and you weren’t planning on teaching.”
“That’s right.”
“You said you were just going to travel around.”
“Yep”
“Something else did suggest itself to me a little later on.”
I remained silent as he glanced my way.
“I was wondering,” he said after a time, “whether you might not be shopping around-either for backing in getting your own company going, or for a buyer for something you have to sell. You know what I mean?”
“You think I came up with something-innovative-and didn’t want Grand Design to have it.”
He slapped the seat beside him.
“Always knew you were no fool,” he said. “So you’re screwing around now, to allow decent time for its development. Then you hunt up the buyer with the most bread.”
“Makes sense,” I said, “if that were the case. But it isn’t.”
He chuckled.
“It’s okay,” he said. “Just because I work for Grand D doesn’t make me their fink. You ought to know that.”
“I do know it.”
“And I wasn’t asking just to pry. In fact, I had other intentions completely. I’d like to see you make out with it, make out big.”
“Thanks.”
“I might even be of some assistance-valuable assistance-in the matter.”
“I begin to get the drift, Luke, but-“
“Just hear me out, huh? But answer one thing first, though, v if you would: You haven’t signed anything with anybody in the area, have you?”
“No.”
“Didn’t think so. It would seem a little premature.”
The roadside trees were larger now, the night breeze a bit more chill.
The moon seemed bigger, more brilliant up here than it had in the town below. We rounded several more curves, eventually commencing a long series of switchbacks that bore us higher and higher. I caught occasional glimpses of sharp drops to the left. There was no guard rail.