The Face

Typhon regards him somberly, even severely, as though with displeasure certain to have consequences that Dunny does not wish to consider. Then his plump face dimples, and his winning smile appears. He makes a gun of thumb and forefinger, pointing it at Dunny as if to say, Gotcha.
        By way of fog and glass and the candlelight on the table, Dunny could in a wink travel from the wharf to the chair opposite Typhon. With so many people in the restaurant, however, that unconventional entrance would be the essence of indiscretion.
        He walks around the building to the front door and follows the maitre d’ through the busy restaurant to Typhon’s table.
        Typhon graciously rises to greet Dunny, offers a hand to be shaken, and says, “Dear boy, I’m sorry to have summoned you at such a critical moment on this night of all nights.”
        After he and Typhon settle into their chairs and after Dunny politely turns aside the maitre d’s solicitation of a drink order, he decides that disingenuousness will not play any better here, and perhaps far worse, than it had the previous night at the hotel bar in Beverly Hills. Typhon had explicitly required integrity, honesty, and directness in their relationship.
        “Sir, before you say anything, I must tell you that I know I’ve [482] stretched my authority to the snapping point again,” Dunny says, “by approaching Hazard Yancy.”
        “Not by approaching him, Dunny. By the directness with which you approached him.” Typhon pauses to sip his martini.
        Dunny starts to explain himself, but the white-haired mensch begs his patience with a raised hand. Blue eyes twinkling merrily, he takes another sip of his martini, and savors it.
        When he speaks, Typhon first addresses a matter of deportment: “Son, your voice is raised just a tad too loud, and there’s an anxiety in it that’s likely to make you an object of interest among those of our fellow diners who are too curious for their own good.”
        The clink of flatware and china, the almost-crystal ring of wineglasses lightly knocked together to the accompaniment of toasts, the graceful music of a piano caressed rather than pounded, and the murmur of many conversations do not swell to the pitch that had so conveniently masked Dunny’s and Typhon’s exchanges in the hotel bar.
        “Sorry,” Dunny says.
        “It’s admirable that you wish to ensure not only Mr. Truman’s physical survival but also his emotional and psychological well-being. This is within your authority. But in the interest of his client, a guardian such as you must act by indirection. Encourage, inspire, terrify, cajole, advise-”
        “-and influence events by every means that is sly, slippery, and seductive,” Dunny finishes.
        “Precisely. You have pushed the limits by the way you’ve handled Aelfric. Pushed against them but haven’t yet exceeded them.”
        Typhon’s manner is that of a concerned teacher who finds it necessary to provide remedial instruction to a problem student. He seems neither wrathful nor riled, for which Dunny is grateful.
        “But by bluntly telling Mr. Yancy not to go into that house,” Typhon continues, “by informing him that he would be shot twice in the head, you have interfered with what was his most likely destiny at that point in time.”
        [483] “Yes, sir.”
        “Yancy may now survive not because of his actions and choices, not because of his unfettered exercise of free will, but because you revealed to him the immediate future.” Typhon sighs. He shakes his head. He looks sad, as though his next words sorrow him a little: “This is not good, dear boy. This is not good for you.”
        Only a moment ago, Dunny had been grateful for his mentor’s lack of anger. Now he’s made apprehensive by Typhon’s quiet dismay and expression of regret, for they suggest that a judgment has already been reached.
        Typhon says, “There were many tricks with which you could have turned Mr. Yancy away from that house by indirection.”
        The older man’s cheerful nature cannot be long suppressed. He breaks into a smile again. His blue eyes twinkle with such merriment that, with a fake beard to match his white hair, and with a suit less elegant, he might board a sleigh two nights hence and harry wingless reindeer into flight.
        Leaning conspiratorially across the table, Typhon says, “Son, any of a thousand bits of spooky business