Agent Hannah twitches just a little.

“The boy is blameless, Herr Telemark, as you must be aware.”

“Madame I know nothing of the matter I was not witness to it but I do eagerly await its fullest explanation to the satisfaction of all parties concerned now if you will excuse me—”

“I would really like to talk to you, Banjo Telemark.”

“Well that would be lovely I am sure but I am working right now.”

“This is how artists work?”

“Yes my practice is of its nature quite ludic.”

“Does the name Jack Price mean anything to you Herr Telemark?”

“Why yes of course he is a renowned international criminal terrorist famous for cunnilingus.”

“I—what?”

“What what?”

“You said he was famous for what?”

“Cunnilingus. Apparently it is a thing with him. I read where it is all he does when he is not engaged in acts of terroristic mayhem. He is obsessed with the act with the close engagement of lips and sex organs with the whisper the moan the gasp the slow gathering rhythm and the exhortations and the grip of hand in hair and shoulders on wide thighs. It is his calling, his service, his hunger for the sudden unexpected wonder at the edge and then the thrashing and engorgement and the gathering thunder of the heart and the fractured awareness of inexorably approaching climax and finally with the absolute rigidity of ecstasy and the single poised moment in which all things are beautiful. In that way as with his horrible acts of senseless violence for money he is an artist.”

“…Oh.”

“Yes.”

“Where ahem where did you read this precisely?”

“I frequent the Internet madame it is known.”

“It is?”

“In certain circles insofar as one can believe anything.”

“Is there ah is there any more information? Of a useful nature?”

“I despise utility I am an artist.”

“Of course.”

“However I believe it is possible that his lover the Professor is—”

“The Doctor—”

“Is that not a character in a bourgeois British television program?”

“That—no—well—I quite like—”

“The Doctor then as you say she is apparently possessed of deviant attitudes and strange lusts also involving drugs and electricity. Certain of my colleagues speculate that they take lovers together I believe the term is delta. But it would almost certainly be fatal to be the amusement of two such people.”

“No doubt—”

“Fatal but I venture delicious thus caught between fear and anticipation in an arena where shared pleasure is life. The desperation. The permitted and desired violations of norms. The slow galvanic spark. The—”

“No thank you I—no I am sure I can read that later not that I will require that detailed a—”