Evening in Byzantium [antikvár]

Overture Dinosauric, obsolete, functions and powers atrophied, dressed in sport sh'rts from Sulka and Cardin, they sat across from each other at small tables in airy rooms overlooking the changing sea and dealt and received cards just as they had done in the lush years in the rainfall forest of the West Coast, when in all seasons they had announced the law in the banks, the board rooms, the Moorish mansions, the cháteaux, the English castles, the Georgián town houses of Southern California. From time to time, phones rang and hearty, deferential voices spoke from Oslo, New Delhi, Paris, Berlin, New York, and the card players barked into the Instruments and gave orders that at another time would have had meaning and no doubt been obeyed. Exiled kings on annual pilgrimage, unwitting Lears per-mitted small bands of faithful retainers, living in pomp without circumstance, they said 'Gin' and 'You're on the schneider' and passed checks for thousands of dollars back and forth. Sometimes they talked of the pre-glacial era. 7 gave her her first job. Seventy-five a week. She was laying a dialogue coach in the Valley at the time.' And, 'He brought it two and a half millión over the budget and we had to yank it in Chicago after three days and now look at him, the pricks in New York say he's a genius. Shit.' And they said, 'The future is in cassettes' and the youngest of them in the room, who was fifty-eight, said, 'What future?' And they said, 'Spades. Double.' Below, on the terrace seven feet above sea-level, open to the sun and wind, leaner and hungrier men spoke their minds. Signalling the hurrying waiters for black coffee and aspirin, they said, 'lt isn't like the old days.'