"I don't have a limp," is snipped back, ill tempered. Some days that's true; today it's less so, the ache in his joints making an easy shortcut for suspicion to cross over into dislike.
(Not that it's difficult to inspire him so. Michael Ralston isn't a delicate case, merely one which often chooses to difficult. The impulse, in addition to how well versed he is in the workings of certain government offices, is part of what makes him useful. The bullheadedness and propensity for spite, and his creative application of both, successfully steered, makes up for what he lacks otherwise: that he's in poor favor with his own people, that woman he'd killed and the long stint in hospital which has followed, the fact that he's been stripped of his aptitude like a de-wicked candle.
Though whether Moscow Centre has said so to the cosmopolitan man with his legs crossed at the knee is an entirely different story.)
Some impulses, however, make themselves obvious regardless of what has or hasn't been included in a brief. In the same instant that Ralston decides he dislikes the man, he decides also that he if he's going to be killed then he may as well make himself comfortable for it. Standing in the sitting room doorway does him little good.
"And you can stop pretending we're friends. I would have to know your name for that, to start with."
This while crossing the room to the steady tempo of the cane on the rug. He helps himself to the matching chintz sofa, the dissolute way in which he slouches down into it and immediately seeks out his cigarette case transforming the room instantly from grandmother's parlor to the faintly musty clandestine meeting house it actually is.
"Does this mean I can stop coming here? The trip is murderous at this hour, and I've never been able to pull off the excuse of giving a fuck about some dead man's great grandmother convincingly." A knowing look is cast in his substitute host's direction. "There are a half dozen disreputable clubs I might recommend instead."
Where is his lighter? In the overcoat pocket by the door.
no subject
(Not that it's difficult to inspire him so. Michael Ralston isn't a delicate case, merely one which often chooses to difficult. The impulse, in addition to how well versed he is in the workings of certain government offices, is part of what makes him useful. The bullheadedness and propensity for spite, and his creative application of both, successfully steered, makes up for what he lacks otherwise: that he's in poor favor with his own people, that woman he'd killed and the long stint in hospital which has followed, the fact that he's been stripped of his aptitude like a de-wicked candle.
Though whether Moscow Centre has said so to the cosmopolitan man with his legs crossed at the knee is an entirely different story.)
Some impulses, however, make themselves obvious regardless of what has or hasn't been included in a brief. In the same instant that Ralston decides he dislikes the man, he decides also that he if he's going to be killed then he may as well make himself comfortable for it. Standing in the sitting room doorway does him little good.
"And you can stop pretending we're friends. I would have to know your name for that, to start with."
This while crossing the room to the steady tempo of the cane on the rug. He helps himself to the matching chintz sofa, the dissolute way in which he slouches down into it and immediately seeks out his cigarette case transforming the room instantly from grandmother's parlor to the faintly musty clandestine meeting house it actually is.
"Does this mean I can stop coming here? The trip is murderous at this hour, and I've never been able to pull off the excuse of giving a fuck about some dead man's great grandmother convincingly." A knowing look is cast in his substitute host's direction. "There are a half dozen disreputable clubs I might recommend instead."
Where is his lighter? In the overcoat pocket by the door.