Agnes Among the Gargoyles by Patrick Flynn

insulted"
    Â Â Â Agnes jumps right in. "I'm not insulted. You may make the check out to my mother."
    Â Â Â "What a beautiful thing," he says.
    Â Â Â "I'm planning to start a account she'll know nothing about," says Agnes, creasing the check. The amount, $5000, is satisfactory, but almost immediately little buds of greed blossom within Agnes. $5000? Why not half a million? Would her mother be set then! A million would be even better.
    Â Â Â "It's touching," says Syker. "I'm really moved. People don't take care of their parents. But this is great. Very moral. Good job."
    Â Â Â "Not so moral," says Agnes. "It's not like I want to hang out with her or anything."
    Â Â Â "Let me tell you something. I wish I could do this for my mother. Then I wouldn't have to hang out with her. Unfortunately, she has all the money."
    Â Â Â Madelaine's office has a terrific view of the Prentiss Building, so controversial when it was first erected in the Thirties by the great impresario, Si Prentiss. It is one of Agnes's favorites. The tower is an inverted ziggurat; defying the normal logic of a skyscraper, the building gets broader near its summit. The odd design was actually a tribute to Prentiss's wife, Brenda Tartabull Prentiss, the former striptease artist, who was built the same way.
    Â Â Â Syker has tightly coiled graying hair and a long equine face. His lips are moist and full. His skin is pitted. His mother was the last one at the helm of Syker's, the great Union Square department store. Agnes has fond memories of Syker's. She went there often with her mother. It was a place Hannah truly understood. Other stores rattled her, but she could cite the duties and privileges of every rank of floorwalker in the Syker hierarchy. Whether an old lady had fainted or the line was too long at Gift Wrapping, Hannah always knew if the swiftest action would come from speaking to a man wearing a red, white, yellow, or blue carnation.
    Â Â Â "Can I ask you something?" says Syker. "How come we didn't see you after you saved the boss's life? You pulled a Greta Garbo."
    Â Â Â "I did what I did and I didn't think any more about it."
    Â Â Â "Well, it's nice that someone deserving got a little of the Wegeman money for a change," he says warmly. "But of course it isn't money that makes you happy."
    Â Â Â Agnes asks Syker what makes him happy.
    Â Â Â "Me? Right now I have an ulcer, so I'm on this crazy diet. A nice piece of crisp chicken skin would make me really happy. What about you?"
    Â Â Â Agnes mulls it over. "Old buildings, of course. I like those."
    Â Â Â "Oh, me too."
    Â Â Â "I guess I like the feeling that I've made the right choices," says Agnes. "Even if things don't work out. I almost don't care if they work out. I just don't want people shaking their heads at me, clucking at my bad decisions."
    Â Â Â This seems to depress him. His emotions bubble very near the surface.
    Â Â Â "People will always do that," he says morosely. "You're better off with chicken skin. Go. Spend your money. Momentary pleasure—what else is there?"

    * * *
    Agnes and Madelaine depart Wegeman Tower together. The palace guard snaps to attention. The afternoon is waning and the sun low, but Madelaine slips on a pair of harlequin sunglasses. She seems smaller and more vulnerable outside, too thin, too precarious on her heels, too gaudy in her gray sable and Cossack-style hat.
    Â Â Â "You live—where did you say? Brooklyn Heights?" Madelaine doesn't seem as friendly outside her guarded sanctum. She seems almost afraid that someone will spot her and Agnes together.
    Â Â Â "Washington Heights. Just north of Harlem."
    Â Â Â Madelaine doesn't know how to respond to this tragic news. "I've heard there are good things happening up there."
    Â Â Â "In Washington Heights? Very few, unless you consider drug dealers murdering each other a positive