degrading.
One morning he got up from his eighteenth-century four-poster bed, put on a Sulka robe, and went looking for Louise. He found her in the breakfast room.
‘I’ve got to get a job,’ he told her.
‘For heaven’s sake, darling, why? We don’t need the money.’
‘It has nothing to do with money. You can’t expect me to sit around on my hands and be spoon-fed. I have to work.’
Louise gave it a moment’s thought. ‘All right, angel. I’ll speak to Budge. He owns a stockbro-kerage firm. Would you like to be a stockbroker, darling?’
‘I just want to get off my ass,’ Jeff muttered.
He went to work for Budge. He had never had a job with regular hours before. I’m going to love it, Jeff thought.
He hated it. He stayed with it because he wanted to bring home a salary cheque to his wife.
‘When are you and I going to have a baby?’ he asked Louise, after a lazy Sunday brunch.
‘Soon, darling. I’m trying.’
‘Come to bed. Let’s try again.’
Jeff was seated at the luncheon table reserved for his brother-in-law and half a dozen other captains of industry at the Pilgrim Club.
Budge announced, ‘We just issued our annual report for the meat-packing company, fellas. Our profits are up forty percent.’
‘Why shouldn’t they be?’ one of the men at the table laughed. ‘You’ve got the fucking inspectors bribed.’ He turned to the others at the table. ‘Old clever Budge, here, buys inferior meat and has it stamped prime and sells it for a bloody fortune.’
Jeff was shocked. ‘People eat meat, for Christ’s sake. They feed it to their children. He’s kidding, isn’t he, Budge?’
Budge grinned and whooped, ‘Look who’s being moral!’
Over the next three months Jeff became very well acquainted with his table companions. Ed Zeller had paid a million in bribes in order to build a factory in Libya. Mike Quincy, the head of a conglomerate, was a raider who bought companies and illegally tipped off his friends when to buy and sell the stock. Alan Thompson, the richest man at the table, boasted of his company’s policy. ‘Before they changed the damn law, we used to fire the old grey hairs one year before their pensions were due. Saved a fortune.’
All the men cheated on taxes, had insurance scams, falsified expense accounts, and put their current mistresses on their payroll as secretaries or assistants.
Christ, Jeff thought. They’re just dressed-up carnies. They all run flat stores.
The wives were no better. They grabbed everything they could get their greedy hands on and cheated on their husbands. They’re playing the key game, Jeff marvelled.
When he tried to tell Louise how he felt, she laughed. ‘Don’t be naïve, Jeff. You’re enjoying your life, aren’t you?’
The truth was that he was not. He had married Louise because he believed she needed him. He felt that children would change everything.
‘Let’s have one of each. It’s time. We’ve been married a year now.’
‘Angel, be patient. I’ve been to the doctor, and he told me I’m fine. Maybe you should have a checkup and see if you’re all right.’
Jeff went.
‘You should have no trouble producing healthy children,’ the doctor assured him.
And still nothing happened.
On Black Monday Jeff’s world fell apart. It started in the morning when he went into Louise’s medicine chest for an aspirin. He found a shelf full of birth control pills. One of the cases was almost empty. Lying innocently next to it was a vial of white powder and a small golden spoon. And that was only the start of the day.
At noon, Jeff was seated in a deep armchair in the Pilgrim Club, waiting for Budge to appear, when he heard two men behind him talking.
‘She swears that her Italian singer’s cock is over ten inches long.’
There was a snicker. ‘Well, Louise always liked them big.’
They’re talking about another Louise, Jeff told himself.
‘That’s probably why she married that carnival person in the first place. But she does tell the most amusing stories about him. You won’t believe what he did the other day …’
Jeff rose and blindly made his way out of the club.
He was filled with a rage such as he had never known. He wanted to kill. He wanted to kill the unknown Italian. He wanted to kill Louise. How many other men had she been sleeping with during the past year? They had been laughing at him all this time. Budge and Ed Zeller and Mike Quincy and Alan Thompson and their wives had been having an enormous joke at his expense. And Louise, the woman he had wanted to protect. Jeff’s immediate reaction was to pack up and leave. But that was not good enough. He had no intention of letting the bastards have the last laugh.
That afternoon when Jeff arrived home, Louise was not there. ‘Madame went out this morning,’ Pickens, the butler, said. ‘I believe she had several appointments.’
I’ll bet she did, Jeff thought. She’s out fucking that ten-inch-cock Italian. Jesus Christ!
By the time Louise arrived home, Jeff had himself under tight control. ‘Did you have a nice day?’ Jeff asked.
‘Oh, the usual boring things, darling. A beauty appointment, shopping … How was your day, angel?’
‘It was interesting,’ Jeff said truthfully. ‘I learned a lot.’
‘Budge tells me you’re doing beautifully.’
‘I am,’ Jeff assured her. ‘And very soon I’m going to be doing even better.’
Louise stroked his hand. ‘My bright husband. Why don’t we go to bed early?’
‘Not tonight,’ Jeff said. ‘I have a headache.’
He spent the next week making his plans.
He began at lunch at the club. ‘Do any of you know anything about computer frauds?’ Jeff asked.
‘Why?’ Ed Zeller wanted to know. ‘You planning to commit one?’
There was a sputter of laughter.
‘No, I’m serious,’ Jeff insisted. ‘It’s a big problem. People are tapping into computers and ripping off banks and insurance companies and other businesses for billions of dollars. It gets worse all the time.’
‘Sounds right up your alley,’ Budge murmured.
‘Someone
