“Hello, Charles,” he said.
Merigold nodded. “Is Muriel still here?” he asked in his smooth, modulated voice. Shoe said she was. “Mr. Hammond would like to see her.”
“I’ll tell her,” Shoe said.
“Thank you,” Merigold said and went into his own office.
Shoe wrote the message on a sticky-note and put it in plain sight on Muriel’s phone. He then knocked on William Hammond’s office door and went in without waiting for an invitation.
“What are you doing here?” Hammond growled from behind his big, marble-topped executive desk. “Where the hell’s Muriel?” With a gnarly, liver-spotted hand, he lifted a tall crystal tumbler and drank a third of its contents. He’d lately developed a liking for Bloody Caesars.
“She’s getting changed,” Shoe said.
“Humph,” Hammond said and set his drink down with a hard chink of glass against stone.
“How are you?” Shoe asked. “You look tired.”
Hammond grunted. “I haven’t had a decent crap in weeks,” he said. “And every morning it seems to take longer to piss. On top of that, I don’t have any fucking backpressure anymore, dribble all over the god-damned floor. I’m going to have to start sitting down to piss, for crissake.”
“Sorry I asked,” Shoe said. He sat in one of the black leather wingback chairs facing Hammond’s desk. It was still warm from Charles Merigold’s body heat.
“What are you doing here, anyway?” Hammond said. “I thought you were taking a couple of weeks off.”
“Muriel and I are going to a concert,” Shoe said.
“Humph,” Hammond said again.
“Are you all right?” Shoe asked. “I could cut my vacation short if you like.”
“What do you mean? Of course I’m all right. Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Patrick’s resignation must have come as a shock,” Shoe said.
“Bah,” Hammond said, waving aside Shoe’s concern. He cocked a raggedy eyebrow. “Have you spoken to him?”
“Not since Friday,” Shoe replied. At a little past five on Friday, Patrick O’Neill had stuck his head into Shoe’s office and said, “Got time for a quick one downstairs?” When they were seated in the bar of the restaurant on the ground floor, Patrick with a vodka and tonic, Shoe with a club soda, Patrick had said, “I just thought I’d warn you, before the shit flies, that I’ve resigned.” Shoe had known Patrick was unhappy, but he hadn’t expected it to come to this. When he’d asked him when he was leaving, Patrick had looked at his watch and replied, “Fifteen minutes ago.”
“He didn’t even have the gumption to tell me to my face,” Hammond growled. “He wrote me a god-damned letter.”
“Would you have accepted his resignation if he’d given it to you in person?” Shoe asked.
“No,” Hammond replied. “I still don’t.”
“I don’t know that you have much choice.”
“We’ll see about that. Talk to him. Find out what he wants to come back.”
“You know what he wants,” Shoe said.
Hammond growled inarticulately, then said, “I’ll bet she put him up to it, just to spite me.”
Shoe sighed. “I don’t think she knew anything about it,” he said. “He told me on Friday he was worried about how he was going to break the news to her.”
“He hadn’t told her?” Hammond said.
“Apparently not,” Shoe said.
“How long have you known?” Hammond asked.
“Just since Friday.”
“You mean he hadn’t told you either?” Hammond said. “You’re his best friend, for crissake.”
Shoe shrugged. “Victoria’s his wife.”
Hammond waved that fact aside. “There are times when it’s best to keep wives in the dark,” he said. “Saves a lot of trouble, believe me. But not telling your best friend, that’s different.”
Shoe reserved comment.
“You’re a goddamned fool, you know,” Hammond said.
“Thank you,” Shoe replied.
Hammond grunted. “She’d’ve married you, you know, if you’d asked.”
“Then it’s a good thing I didn’t ask,” Shoe said.
“You’re probably right,” Hammond agreed sourly. “You might be big and tough, but she’d’ve eaten you alive.”
“Can we change the subject, please?” Shoe said.
“Sure,” Hammond said. “What would you like to talk about? Let’s see. Are you enjoying your vacation? What are you doing to keep yourself busy?”
“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