style="font-size:15px;"> When his half-hour was up, Shoe shut down the treadmill and started toward the shower. Del Tilley disengaged from his sparring partner with a bow.
“I heard you used to be a cop,” he said to Shoe. He kept his distance so he wouldn’t have to crane his neck to look Shoe in the eyes.
“A long time ago,” Shoe said.
“You must still remember some of your cop training,” Tilley said.
“I suppose I do.”
“Would you care to spar?”
Shoe looked at Ed Davage. His dark face was impassive. His bulky musculature was imposing. “No, thanks,” Shoe said.
Tilley’s jug-handle ears had reddened. “Not with him,” he’d said stiffly. “With me.” A grin, quickly gone, had tugged at the corners of Davage’s mouth.
Shoe had felt his face colour. “Sorry,” he’d said. “Some other time, perhaps.”
Ever since then, Del Tilley had treated Shoe with stiff formality bordering on contempt.
“Is there something I can do for you, Mr. Tilley?” Muriel asked.
“No, thank you, Miss Yee,” he replied. He looked at Shoe. “However, since you’re here, Schumacher, perhaps we could take the opportunity to discuss some organizational changes I have in mind.” Keeping his expression carefully neutral, Shoe waited for Tilley to explain exactly what sort of organizational changes he had in mind. Finally Tilley said, “In light of Mr. O’Neill’s resignation, I’m going to suggest to Charles Merigold that your responsibilities be transferred to my department.”
“Your department?” Shoe said.
“Yes,” Tilley said. “Despite your rather grandiose title, your duties are essentially investigatory in nature and as such fall more properly into my bailiwick.”
“Your bailiwick?” Shoe said.
“Security,” Tilley responded. “And I think Mr. Merigold will agree with me.”
“I’m sure he will,” Shoe said amiably. “There’s one little problem, though.”
“Oh? And what is that?”
“I don’t work for Mr. Merigold. I work for Mr. Hammond.”
Tilley’s face hardened. “I was under the impression,” he said tightly, “that you reported to Mr. O’Neill. He was VP of Corporate Development, after all.”
“An understandable error,” Shoe said, smiling. “Given my rather grandiose title. But an error nonetheless. However, don’t let that stop you.”
“I won’t,” Tilley replied. He turned on his heel and stalked off down the hall toward his office.
Shoe looked at Muriel, who shrugged eloquently. Picking up a small overnight bag, she said, “Mind the fort while I change.” She headed toward the women’s washroom.
Shoe was minding the fort when Hammond’s office door opened and Charles Merigold came out. Merigold was Hammond Industries’ Managing Director. He was a handsome, somewhat effeminate man in his late fifties, whose suit looked as though it had been made an hour ago. Did he ever sit down? Shoe wondered.
“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
