"I'm not a what?" I'm asking.
"In certain circles, in certain media circles, people know who you are." Delta this time. "You're a target."
Palakon and Crater nod subtly.
"There were certain aspects of your life that your father felt were affecting"-Delta pauses-"certain... possibilities from forming."
"Listen, Victor," Crater says impatiently. "Your dad basically wanted you to take a vacation."
"Why did he want that?" I ask slowly, in a very restrained voice.
"He felt that some of your... antics, let's say..." Palakon has trouble completing this sentence. He checks a file resting on the table, as the room seems to grow smaller. "Well, they were distracting." Palakon pauses. "They were... unnecessary. There was the possibility of bad publicity," he delicately adds.
"There was a concern that things might not fall into place properly," the Japanese man says. "There were worries that things might not work out in New Hampshire since you-"
"We don't need to go there quite yet;" Palakon says, cutting him off.
"Yes, of course," the Japanese man says. "You're quite right."
"Victor, your father didn't want you harmed in any way," Palakon says. "He simply wanted you to, well, take a break for a little while. He wanted you... preoccupied. He didn't want you in the States." Palakon pauses. "So he came to us. Things were discussed. Arrangements were made."
Silence, empty and graceless. I'm just staring at them, unable to take all this in because of certain details my mind cannot accept, and that lack of acceptance keeps spreading and I'm looking at this through a window and it's being boarded up and it's night and no one has said or is going to say who they really are.
We'll slide down the surface of things.
It's what you don't know that matters most.
The room slopes, then rights itself.
Outside, thunder.
You are beyond uneasiness. You force yourself to look at them. You stop yourself from falling over. You try to care. But you can't. Even if you wanted to, you can't. And now, in this room, it occurs to you that they know this too. Confusion and hopelessness don't necessarily cause a person to act. Someone from my first publicist's office told me this a long time ago. Only now does it resurface. Only now does it mean anything to me.