The Institute, Daddy Issues(19)

“This is it,” Salt as­sured me. “Hope­fully will be bet­ter on the in­side.”

“Hope­fully,” I said. “It could hardly be worse.”

The big build­ing was a dull, uni­form gray with peel­ing paint and a rusty fire es­cape cling­ing to one side. The few win­dows at the front were boarded up like blind eyes. Only the broad wooden double doors at the top of the long row of crum­bling brick steps gave any in­dic­a­tion of wealth. They, at least, looked new and when Salt rang the bell soft, rich chimes soun­ded from within.

A small pee­p­h­ole I hadn’t no­ticed be­fore slid open in one of the doors.

“Name?” a cul­tured voice asked.

“I am Viktor Saltanov from Mo­scow,” Salt said, de­lib­er­ately deep­en­ing his ac­cent. “I was told to be here at this time for din­ner? Yes?”

“Oh, yes of course.” The small pee­p­h­ole shut and the front doors swung open, re­veal­ing an op­u­lent hall­way flooded with golden light—the ex­act op­pos­ite of the out­side of the build­ing. “Do come in,” said the but­ler—be­cause he had to be a but­ler. Dressed as he was in black and white with white gloves there was noth­ing else he could be.

“Thank you.” Salt entered with me still on his arm.

I looked around, my eyes nar­rowed as I searched for pos­sible threats. The Cap­tain had told us that Berkley, the man who owned and ran the In­sti­tute, was a dan­ger­ous guy, pos­sibly with ties to the Mob. We weren’t ab­so­lutely sure he was the one dis­trib­ut­ing Please, but it was a pretty safe bet he was in­volved in one way or an­other.

But all I saw in my scan of the entry­way was a broad, open area with hard­wood floors and an old fash­ioned crys­tal chan­delier hanging from the high ceil­ing. There were two curving stair­cases, one on either side of the entry­way but I couldn’t see where either of them led. Ex­pens­ive look­ing paint­ings hung on the walls as well as an an­tique mir­ror with an or­nate, scrolled frame. When I looked at my re­flec­tion, I got a nasty shock. I saw a little girl wear­ing a fluffy party dress hanging on her father’s arm like she was about to go to a Daddy/daugh­ter dance.

The Valentine’s Day dance—that’s why he bought me the dress! But he left be­fore it happened. I never got to wear it and Mom threw it out. She said— I shut down the memory hast­ily and looked away. I really had to get hold of my­self if this was go­ing to work!

“We’re very glad to have you here, Mr. Saltanov,” the but­ler said. “Dir­ector Berkley is ex­pect­ing you.”

“So I am and it’s good to see you got here safely.” A tall man with iron gray hair sud­denly ap­peared, smil­ing at Salt. I real­ized he must have come up to us while I was star­ing in the mir­ror, hav­ing mor­bid thoughts. “You had a com­fort­able flight from Mo­scow, I hope?” he said, hold­ing out his hand.

“Mod­er­ately com­fort­able.” Salt made a see-saw ges­ture with one hand. “First class is not what it once was. Still, my little mishka was happy. She loves plane rides. Isn’t that right, mishka?”

He looked down at me af­fec­tion­ately and I tried to re­turn his smile but the sight of the two of us in that damn mir­ror kept tug­ging at me. There was a long si­lence and I real­ized Salt was wait­ing for me to agree with him.

“Yes, Papa,” I man­aged. “It was fun.”

It soun­ded lame, even to me but it was too late to take it back.

“Well…” Dir­ector Berkley smiled and bent down, put­ting his hands on his knees. “And this must be your Little,” he said in sing­song voice as though he was talk­ing to a small child.

“Yes, this is my mishka,” Salt said. “She is…how do you say? New to the con­cepts your In­sti­tute is foun­ded on. We are both here to learn.”

“Is that right?” Berkley looked at me with in­terest. “How long have you been your Daddy’s little girl, my dear?”

“Just a few months,” I said tightly. I knew I ought to act shy or coy like a real little girl might but this guy’s sim­per­ing, con­des­cend­ing at­ti­tude was get­ting on my nerves and the im­age in the mir­ror seemed to be mock­ing me.