“I figured, what the hell?” Peter answered. He had both his forearms on the bar, the fingers of one hand around the glass, and, as he often did, Terrance saw a sketch or a painting—in the man’s big fingers beside that squat tumbler of Scotch, and the reflection of the glass on the bar. “I used to hunt. Not much lately. Not at all in the last three years.”
“Suppose you kill a lion. Will you have the head shipped back to L.A.? Is that still done?”
“That’s a big supposition. Bagging a lion? Might be above my pay grade.”
“A zebra then?”
“Ship the skin back? I doubt it. Maybe if my ex-wives didn’t hate me, I would: have it turned into handbags for them. When I hunted in America, it was to be with my father and my grandfather. Be outside. In the wild. The woods? A cathedral for my grandfather. And I actually like deer. The taste. I have very fond memories from my youth of eating venison at my grandfather’s in Montana.”
“From a deer you shot.”
He nodded. “Or one my grandfather shot. And Charlie Patton? He’s a legend. He used to hunt with Hemingway. Taught Robert Ruark a bunch. So, when I heard that he was the outfitter that Katie had booked, it seemed a natural.”
“It sounds like I should have heard of him.”
“Nah. If you’re not interested in collecting an elephant, why would you know his name? He’s a dying breed: one of the last remaining great white hunters.”
The last three words caused Terrance to snap his head up. His mind had begun to drift: he had been looking down at the bar and their booze, but now he was staring at Merrick. Merrick was gazing at the rows of bottles with their exquisite labels behind the bartender, a phantasmagoric collage of yellows and reds and impeccable graphics. He considered letting the words slide by, but Peter was a straight shooter and Terrance once more was on the balance beam he knew well: outrage on one side and acceptance on the other. He’d built a career walking it. “Great white hunters?” he asked. “What in the world does that mean, Peter?”
The agent turned to him and shrugged. “It means nothing. No need to take offense.”
“I’m not offended, but it means something. Are there no great Black hunters? Or are there white hunters who aren’t great?”
Peter swallowed the last of his Johnnie Walker. “I’m guessing you didn’t see Drums of Africa last year.”
“Missed it.”
“You missed nothing. Atrocious movie. God-awful. But Torin Thatcher plays one.”
“A great white hunter.”
Peter nodded. “It’s just, I don’t know, the term that’s used for a certain class of elite hunter. The colonials who would lead the more exclusive hunting safaris. They used to be called that.”
That. Terrance noted that he didn’t repeat the expression. “And they were all white?”
“Yes. This was Africa.”
Peter saw no irony in that last sentence. But, then, why would he? The fact was, the colonials （Peter’s word） had had their boots on the necks of the native Blacks for centuries. They still did in vast swaths of the continent. And in some countries where the Africans had fought for and won their freedom, they were now reenacting the civil wars that had plagued Europe and North America the last three hundred years.
“I’m sorry, Terrance,” Peter was saying. “I won’t use that expression again.”
“Thank you. But you have nothing to apologize for. I was just taken aback by the term.”
“I think he’s an all-right sort. Charlie, that is. More good than bad. At least that’s the impression I’ve gotten from the memoirs and articles I’ve read about him. From the letters we exchanged when I booked him.”
“You did your homework.”
“I did. But, as I said, I’d already heard of Patton.” He motioned for the bartender to refill his glass. “Look, I’m not going to defend the man and what he’s called. But I have a sense that…”
His voice trailed off, and Terrance waited for the agent to continue. “I actually feel a little bad for him,” Peter went on after a moment. “I doubt his career is ending the way he would have liked.”
This surprised Terrance. “How so?” he asked.
“I’m guessing here, but I think he’s feeling a little diminished. Hunting isn’t what it used to be. Fewer people do it, fewer people spend the money. The new governments have figured out there’s a lot more dough from Americans and Europeans who want to photograph lions than kill them. Look at how little of Kenya or Tanganyika—where we’re going—is now zoned for hunting. It’s all about cameras, not guns. Wildlife experts, not hunters. And so Patton changed his business model and now guides the likes of us, instead of the likes of Hemingway. And if you’re the sort of man that Patton probably is, that’s a comedown. It’s…unmanly. That’s what I meant by a dying breed. I guess it would be like an actor of your stature suddenly having to pay the rent doing schlock horror movies with tiny budgets.”