and handed back the container. ‘It’s nice to be able to find out a few things for myself when my friends are lying to me.’
‘I know the feeling,’ Lou agreed, glad to have the container back in his possession. ‘Like my finding out about the meeting you and Mr Patterson had a few mornings ago and the lunch you had last Friday.’
Unusually for Alfred, he looked genuinely shocked.
‘Oh,’ Lou said softly, ‘you didn’t know that I knew, did you? Sorry about that. Well, you’d better get to dinner or you’ll miss your appetiser. All work and no caviar makes Alfred a dull boy.’ He led a silent Alfred to his door, opened it and winked at him before closing it quietly in his face.
Seven thirty p.m. came and went without Arthur Lynch appearing on the fifty-inch plasma before Lou at the boardroom table. Aware that at any moment he could be seen by whoever would be present at the meeting, he attempted to relax in his chair, and tried not to sleep. At seven forty p.m., Mr Lynch’s secretary informed him that Mr Lynch would be a few more minutes.
While waiting, the increasingly sleepy Lou pictured Alfred in the restaurant, brash as could be, the centre of attention, loud and doing his best to entertain; stealing the glory, making or breaking a deal that Lou wouldn’t be associated with unless Alfred failed. In missing that – the most important meeting of the year – Lou was losing the biggest chance to prove himself to Mr Patterson. Cliff’s job and the empty office that came with it was dangled at him day in and day out like a carrot on a string. Cliff’s old office was down the hall next to Mr Patterson’s, blinds open and vacant. A larger office, with better light. It called to him. It had been six months since the memorable morning Cliff had had his breakdown – after a long process of unusual behaviour. Lou had finally found Cliff crouched under his desk, his body trembling, with the keyboard held tightly and close to his chest. Occasionally his fingers tapped away in some sort of panicked Morse code. They were coming to get him, he kept repeating, wide-eyed and terrified.
Who exactly they were, Lou had been unable to ascertain. He’d tried to gently coax Cliff out from under the desk, to make him put his shoes and socks back on, but Cliff had lashed out as Lou neared and hit him across the face with the attached mouse, swinging the wire around like a cowboy rope. The force of the small plastic mouse hadn’t hurt nearly as much as the sight of this young successful man falling apart. The office had lain empty for all those months and, as rumours of Cliff’s further demise drifted through offices, the sympathy for him lessened as the competition for his job increased. Lou had recently heard that Cliff had started seeing people again, and he had all the best intentions to visit. He knew he should, and he would at some point, but he just couldn’t seem to find the time …
Lou’s frustration grew as he stared at the black plasma still yet to come alive. His head pounded and he could barely think as his migraine spread from the base of his head to his eyes. Feeling desperate, he retrieved the pills from his pocket and stared at them.
He thought of Gabe’s knowledge of Mr Patterson and Alfred’s meeting and of how Gabe had correctly judged the shoe situation, of how Gabe had provided him with coffee the previous morning, driven him home and somehow won Ruth over. Convincing himself that on every occasion Gabe had never let him down, and that he could trust him now, Lou shook the open container and one small white glossy pill rolled out onto the palm of his sweaty hand. He played with it for a while, rolling it around in his fingers, licked it; and when nothing drastic happened, he popped it into his mouth and quickly downed it with a glass of water.
Lou held on to the boardroom table with both hands, gripping it so hard that his sweaty prints were visible on the glass surface laid to protect the solid walnut. He waited. Nothing happened. He lifted his hands from the table and studied them as though the effects would be seen on his sweaty palms. Still nothing out of the ordinary happened, no unusual trip, nothing life-threatening apart from his head, which continued to pound.
At seven forty-five p.m. there was still no sign of Arthur Lynch on the plasma. Lou tapped his pen against the glass impatiently, no longer caring about how he’d appear to the people on the other side of the camera. Already paranoid beyond reasoning, Lou began to convince himself that there was no meeting at all, that Alfred had somehow orchestrated this staged meeting so that he could have dinner by himself and negotiate the deal. But Lou wouldn’t allow Alfred to sabotage any more of his hard work. He stood quickly, grabbed his overcoat and charged for the door. He pulled it open and had one foot over the threshold when he heard a voice coming from the plasma behind him.
‘I’m very sorry for keeping you waiting, Mr Suffern.’
The voice stalled Lou in his march. He closed his eyes and sighed, kissing his dream of the top office with the three-hundred-and-sixty-degree view of Dublin goodbye. He quickly thought about what to do: run and make it in time for dinner or turn around and face the music. Before he had time to make the decision, the sound of another voice in the office almost stopped his heart.
Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.
Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».
Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.
Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.
