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 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?”
