“Nothing much.” Shoe replied. “Working around the house.”
“Sounds exciting,” Hammond responded.
The door opened and Muriel came into the office. She had changed into a plain red silk Chinese-style dress that covered her from throat to ankles, perfectly cut to fit to every line and curve. The skirt was slit almost to her hip, exposing an immodest length of silk-sheathed thigh.
“About goddamned time,” Hammond grumbled. “Abby’s hosting the monthly meeting of the board of directors of one of her damned charities. Bunch of cackling hens with egg salad between their teeth. I’m going to spend the night here.”
“Yes, sir,” Muriel replied, glancing at Shoe. “But why don’t I get you a hotel room? It would be more comfortable?”
“What’s it matter to you where I sleep, for crissake? Just make up the goddamned bed.”
“Yes, sir,” Muriel replied.
Hammond finished his drink and thrust the empty glass in Shoe’s direction. “Fix me another, will you?”
Shoe went to the liquor cabinet. He caught Muriel’s eye as she squatted to take bedding from the bottom drawer of a similar cabinet next to the long leather hide-a-bed sofa. The move seemed contrived to cause the slit of her skirt to part high on her thigh. She winked at him and he felt the heat rise in his face. He returned to Hammond’s desk and handed him his drink.
Hammond watched Muriel as she removed the cushions from the sofa and opened it into a queen-sized bed. Shoe recalled Muriel once telling him that Hammond liked to watch her whenever he thought she wouldn’t notice. “Although I don’t think he really cares if I notice or not,” she’d said. “It stopped bothering me a long time ago. In fact, from time to time I give him a little show. What can I say? I’m an exhibitionistic hussy. I’d faint dead away, though, if the old bugger ever called my bluff and did anything about it.”
Hammond sighed suddenly and slumped back in his high-backed chair. Shoe was shocked at how old he looked. His balding pate was a sickly and scabrous yellow and the flesh of his face was creased and folded and sagging. His hands protruded from the sleeves of his suit coat like bundles of bent sticks.
“Why don’t you take some time off?” Shoe said. “Take Abby on a cruise over the holidays. Charles can handle things around here.”
Hammond grunted. “Charlie Merigold can’t jerk himself off without someone to hold his hand,” he said. Across the room, Muriel chuckled. “Anyway,” Hammond went on, “Abby hated that cruise we took three years ago. So did I.”
When Muriel had finished making up the bed, she said, “Can I get you something to eat before we go?”
“I’m not hungry,” Hammond said.
“You should eat something.”
“All right. Anything to stop your goddamned nagging. A sandwich.” He tasted his drink, then held it out to Shoe. “Put some damned vodka in this,” he said.
The telephone in the outer office began to ring. Muriel went out to answer it.
“Perhaps this isn’t the best time to bring this up,” Shoe said as he added a splash of vodka to Hammond’s drink, “but I’ve been thinking about retiring.”
“Eh?” Hammond said. “What’s that?”
“Not right away. Maybe not even soon.” Shoe passed Hammond his drink. “But it’s something I’ve been thinking about.”
“You’re what, fifty?” Hammond said. “No one retires at fifty, for crissake.”
“And maybe I won’t,” Shoe said. “I don’t want to work for Del Tilley, though.”
“Eh? What are you talking about? You don’t work for Del Tilley. You work for me.”
“Tilley thinks that despite my ‘grandiose title,’ as he put it, I should be working for the security department,” Shoe said.
“Your job is to investigate companies we’re thinking of buying. What’s that to do with security, for crissake? Forget Tilley.” Hammond’s eyes suddenly sharpened. “Unless you want his job. You’re as qualified as he is to run security around here, maybe more so.”
“I like the job I have,” Shoe said.
“So what’s all this blather about retirement then?”
“As I said, it’s just something I’ve been thinking about.”
Muriel came back into the office, expression troubled. “That was the security desk in the lobby,” she said to Hammond. “The police are downstairs.”
“Eh? What do they want?” he asked.
“They want to talk to you.” She gestured to the phone on his desk. “Shall I tell security to send them up?”
“I suppose so,” Hammond said. Muriel picked up the phone. “See what they want,” he said to Shoe.
chapter two
Shoe met the two uniformed cops in the outer office. One was a big, raw-boned redhead in his twenties whose nametag read “A. Callahan.” The other was a sturdy, olive-skinned female constable in her forties. Her nametag read “T. Minnelli.”
“Mr. William Hammond?” Constable Minnelli asked.
“No. My name is Schumacher. I work for Mr. Hammond. What can I do for you?”
“Is Mr. Hammond here?”
“Yes, but he’s indisposed at the moment,” Shoe said.
The redheaded cop smiled knowingly, misinterpreting the expression, but Minnelli was all business. “Do you know a Patrick O’Neill?” she asked.
A point of coldness formed in the middle of Shoe’s chest. “Yes,” he said.
“I’m sorry to have to tell you this,” Minnelli said, her voice tonelessly professional, “but Mr. O’Neill was shot to death a few minutes before four this afternoon, in a restaurant near the Waterfront SkyTrain station.”
The point of coldness in Shoe’s chest expanded. Adrenaline rushed through him like an electrical current, making the surface of his skin tingle with hyper-sensitivity. “Shot?” he said disbelievingly.
“Yes, sir.”
“Has his wife been informed?”
“Yes,” Minnelli said.
Muriel came out of Hammond’s office. The cops looked at her, the redhead’s eyes widening slightly. Shoe’s voice was hollow as he said, “This is Miss Yee, Mr. Hammond’s assistant.”
The cops nodded.
“Joe?” Muriel said, stepping close to him. “What is it?” She placed her hand on his arm.
Shoe repeated what Minnelli had told him, almost word for word.
“Oh, god,” Muriel said, staggering as if she’d been struck. Shoe took her arm, afraid she might fall, but she was made of sterner stuff than that. She leaned against him for a second, though, while tears formed in her eyes.
“I think you should get him,” Shoe said to her, hand still on her arm.
She nodded, took a breath, and went into Hammond’s office.
“Did Mrs. O’Neill give you this address?” Shoe asked.
“No,” Minnelli replied. “Mr. O’Neill had an emergency contact card in his wallet with both his personal and business particulars.”
Hammond