Her mouth closed suddenly. Her eyes got dark and cold. Silently she got to her feet, tapping her cigarette out in the tray beside the chair. She picked her pocketbook up from the chair and when she turned back to me her face was as grim and cold as her eyes. The tone of her voice went mine one better. “You misunderstand me, Mr. Rowan. I’m not looking for any personal publicity out of this. I’ve had more than enough of it. The only reason I came to see you was to work out a campaign for the infantile drive next January. The only reason I accepted the job was because I know what it means to lose someone to that dreadful disease and I don’t want any other wife or mother to go through that I did.” She turned and started for the door.
I stared after her in confusion for a moment. Then a glimpse of her profile set in white anger did it and I remembered. Her name escaped my lips. “Mrs. David E. Schuyler!” Now I knew the whole story. Silently I cursed myself for a fool. The papers had been full of her last year. How she had lost her twin children and her husband to polio.
I caught her at the door just before she opened it. I leaned against it, holding it closed. She looked up at me. I could see the faint trace of angry tears in her eyes.
“Mrs. Schuyler,” I said contritely. “Could you forgive a stupid Third Avenue mug who thinks he knows everything? I’m really ashamed.”
Her eyes looked deep into mine for a long moment, then she drew a deep breath and silently walked back to the chair. She took out her cigarette case and opened it. I could see her fingers trembling as she put the cigarette in her mouth. I held a match for her.
“I’m very sorry,” I said as the flame flared golden on her face. “I thought you were just another one of those women who were looking for glory.”
Her eyes were still staring up into mine and I could see the smoke curling blue around her face. Then there was nothing but her eyes and I was lost in the whirling dark blue pain of them. I fought an impulse to take her in my arms and wash the pain away. No one should know such pain.
Her voice was very still and gentle. “If you’ll really help me, Brad, I’ll forgive you.”
4
The phone buzzed. It was Chris. “The accountant just verified last month’s net,” he said.
I looked over at Elaine. “Excuse me a moment,” I smiled. “Business.”
“Of course,” she nodded.
“Okay, shoot,” I said into the phone.
“Profit before taxes, twenty-one thousand; after taxes, nine,” he said in his dull, dry voice.
“Good,” I said into the phone. “Go down the line.”
“Have you the time?” he asked, a faint touch of sarcasm in his voice.
“I got the time,” I said without taking my eyes from her.
He began reeling off a string of figures from the profit and loss and balance sheets. I paid no attention to them. I was only watching her. I could feel a warmth ease into my groin, my cock beginning to harden. I couldn’t speak, only nod as he raced through the information.
She had left her chair and walked over to the wall and was examining the steel layouts. I liked the way she moved, the way she held herself, the way she cocked her head to one side to study a drawing. She must have felt my gaze on her back for suddenly she turned around and smiled at me.
I returned her smile and she came back to the desk and sat down. A last he was finished and I put down the phone. “I’m sorry,” I said.
“Don’t apologize,” she said. “I understand.” She looked at the drawings on the wallboard. “They seem like rather unusual ads. They don’t sell anything specific. Only the functions of steel.”
“That’s what they’re supposed to do,” I said. “That’s part of a special campaign we’re whipping up for the American Steel Institute.”
“Oh, the institutional public relations campaign?” she exclaimed.
“You know about it?”
“That’s all I’ve been hearing about the last two weeks,” she said. I looked puzzled and she explained. “My uncle, Matthew Brady, is chairman of the board of Consolidated Steel. I’ve just come from two weeks at his house.”
I let out a whistle. Matt Brady was the last of the old-line steel men. A pirate down to his fingertips. Sharp, cold, ruthless. I had heard he was the nut we had to crack to get anywhere, and he was the guy Chris had been afraid of.
She began to laugh. “You’ve got such a funny expression on your face. What are you thinking?”
I searched her eyes for a moment and decided this was a dame to be honest with. “I was just thinking that a kind fate must have been watching over me. I might’ve chased you out of my office. And Matt Brady your uncle. That would have been the end of my crack at the steel account.”
“Do you think that would have made any difference to me?” she asked, the laughter fading from her face.
“Uh-uh,” I shook my head. “Not to you. But it would to me if I were your uncle. If I were Matt Brady, nobody would dare treat you mean.”
The laughter came back to her eyes. “Then you don’t know my uncle,” she said. “When it comes to business, personal relationships don’t mean a thing to him.”
“That’s what I heard,” I said. I heard worse than that but I didn’t tell her.
“But he’s sweet, and I’m very fond of him,” she added quickly.
I smiled to myself at that. It was pretty hard to picture Matt Brady as a sweet character. Matt Brady, who had pushed all the small steel companies up against the wall during the last depression and then took them over for a song. God only knew how many people he had broken with that simple altruistic gesture.
I looked down at our notes. “Enough of that,” I said. “To get back to our own problems. The trouble with any of these drives is that the public is sick and tired of hard luck stories and doesn’t want to hear any more of them. But I think we can lick that if you have the guts.”
Her mouth tightened. “I’ll do anything to help.”
“Good,” I said. “Then we’ll set up a whole batch of newspaper, radio and TV interviews for you. You’ll tell them your own story. Simply. Personally.”
A shadow fell across her eyes. I never saw a face with so much pain in it. Impulsively I reached for her hand. It lay still and quiet in mine. “You don’t have to,” I said quickly, wanting to take away that hurt. “There are other ways. We’ll find them.”
Quietly she withdrew her hand from mine and clasped them in her lap. Her eyes were steady. “We’ll do it,” she said. “You’re right. It’s the best way.”
She had guts, real guts. Matt Brady’s niece was nothing he’d need to be ashamed of. “Good girl,” I said.
The intercom buzzed and I flipped the switch. “Yes?”
Mickey’s voice came through, flat and metallic. “It’s six-thirty, boss, and I’ve got a heavy date tonight. Do you want me to hang around?”
I looked at my watch and cursed. I hadn’t realized it was that late. “Go ahead, Mickey,” I told her. “I’ll wrap up.”
“Thanks, boss,” her voice came back. “You can leave the tenner on my desk. Good night.”
I closed the switch and turned to Elaine. She was smiling at me.
“I didn’t mean to keep you so late, Brad,” she said.
“Nor I you,” I told her.
“But you’ll be late getting home for dinner, while my time is my own,” she pointed out.
“Marge won’t mind,” I answered quickly. “She’s used to it.”
She walked over to where her handbag lay. “Nevertheless I’d better be going,” she said, taking out a long slim tube of lipstick and beginning to apply it.
I watched her. “But we haven’t nearly finished yet,” I said, a curious reluctance in me to see her getting ready to leave. “And you’re going back to Washington tomorrow.”
She glanced over the top of her mirror at me. “But I’ll be back next week.” She checked the lipstick line and began to close the tube. “We can pick up then.”
“Things are never as good
as when you have to come back and pick them up again,” I heard myself saying.
Her eyes were fixed on my speculatively. “Then what do you suggest?” she asked.
I was being more surprised at myself every moment. “Let’s stay down and have dinner, if you have no other engagement,” I said quickly. “Then we can come back here and finish up.”
Her eyes looked into mine for a moment then almost imperceptibly she shook her head. “We’d better not,” she said. “I won’t feel right in upsetting your evening. Bad enough I had to bother you as it is.”
I went over and helped her into her fur jacket. “Okay,” I said, disappointment showing in my voice. “How about a drink, then?”
She turned around and looked at me squarely. “What are you looking for, Brad?”
The surprise on my face wasn’t quite genuine. “I’m not looking for anything. Do you have to look for something if you want to buy a woman a drink?”
Her face was unsmiling. “Not necessarily. But you didn’t impress me as the kind of man who goes around buying drinks for women.”
I could feel a flush creeping into my face. “I’m not.”
Her eyes were still trying to read my face. “Then why me?”
I felt awkward and embarrassed, like a kid who asked a girl for a date and was turned down flat. I found what seemed like a good answer. “Because I’m sorry about how I acted when you first came in, and I want to prove it to you.”
Her face relaxed and some of the tension went out of it. “You don’t have to do that, Brad,” she said quietly. “You’ve already proved that.”
I didn’t answer.
“Good night, Brad,” she said, holding out her hand, “and thanks.”
I took her hand. It was small and light and the skin was smooth in my fingers. I looked down at it for a moment and her coral nail polish gleamed up at me. I smiled. “Good night, Elaine.”
“I’ll be back in town Monday and we can get together then, if it’s convenient for you,” she said.
“Any time you say,” I said, still holding her hand. I could feel a pulse racing in my temples.
She looked down at her hand and withdrew it gently. I could see her face flush. She turned and started for the door.
“If you’re in town early enough,” I called after her, “let’s make lunch.”
She stopped and looked back at me. “Where?”
I rested my hands on my desk behind me. “Pick me up here about one.”
“It’s a date,” she said, still not smiling.
I watched the door close behind her and walked around my desk and sat down. I stared at the door. Her perfume was still in my nostrils. I breathed deeply and it was gone. I leaned forward and picked up the phone to tell Marge I’d be home for dinner by eight.
All the way home I kept thinking about her. The more I thought about her the angrier I got with myself. What had got into me anyway? She wasn’t the most beautiful dame I had ever seen in my life. Neither was she the sexiest. She wasn’t stacked like that. But none of that mattered; all I could taste was her lips, all I could feel was her skin and all I wanted was my mouth on those beautiful thighs, smelling her and tasting her.
While we were eating dinner I told Marge all about Mrs. Schuyler and the rude way I had acted when she came into the office.
Marge listened to me silently in that attentive way she had and when I finished, she let out a small sigh.
“What’s that for?” I asked quickly.
“Poor woman,” she said slowly. “Poor, unhappy woman.”
I stared at her as if she had just turned on the lights in a dark room and I could see again. That was it. She had hit the nail right. Elaine Schuyler meant nothing to me at all. I felt the way I did because I was sorry for her.
I began to feel better, more like myself again. That had to be the reason. By the time I went to bed I was convinced it was.
But I was wrong, and I knew it the moment she walked into my office on Monday. All it took was one look.
5
By the time I got down to the office on Monday I was back to normal. I had everything figured out. I would have lunch with her, be polite and helpful and that would be all there was to it.
I smiled as I sat down to my morning mail. What a fool I had almost made of myself. I should have known better. I was past that. Forty-three was too old.
There is a stage in a man’s life where a woman is important, and sex and romance are synonymous. But that comes while you’re young, not at forty-three. At forty-three you’ve got other things to think about. It’s part of growing up and I’ve seen it in almost every man I know. By forty-three, sex and romance require too much effort, take too much out of you emotionally and physically. You need the drive for other things. Business, for example.
I remember hearing someone say that business was the American substitute for sex. As a man grew older and his drive weakened, he looked about for other fields in which he could demonstrate his abilities. Business was the logical out. That’s why so many men made mistresses of their work. That was why so many wives were unhappy too, but that was the normal hazard of marriage. It made sense to me. A man has just so much strength, and I was smart enough to know my limitations. Besides, she was Matt Brady’s niece and there was no point in looking for trouble.
By the time one o’clock rolled around I had almost forgotten about my luncheon date. It had been a hectic morning and I had created a very demanding mistress. The intercom buzzed and I pressed the key down impatiently.
“Mrs. Schuyler is here.” The words lingered in my ears.
I sucked in my breath sharply. A quick excitement began to pound through me. “Ask her to come in,” I said, getting to my feet.
I was the smart one, all right; I had everything figured out. A moment before I hadn’t thought about her, she hadn’t been important to me. But now she was.
I knew it as I waited for the door to open. I couldn’t wait. I wanted to hurry to it and open it for her. I began to move around the desk but she had already come into the office.
I had thought it wouldn’t happen again. It couldn’t happen again. It had been that way the first time I saw her but it wouldn’t be this time. This time I knew what she was like. I had my guard up. I was wrong about that too.
She smiled at me and I could hardly speak. “Hello, Brad.” Her voice was low and warm.
For a moment I hesitated; then I walked across the room and took her hand. “Elaine.” Her soft, cool fingers were like fire in my palm. “Elaine,” I repeated. “I’m so glad you could come.”
She started to laugh, to make some merry, inconsequential remark, but she looked up into my face and the words stopped in her throat. A shadow came into her eyes and she looked away from me.
“I’m sorry, Brad,” she almost whispered, withdrawing her hand. “I can’t make lunch with you.”
“Why not?” I blurted out.
She still didn’t look up at me. “I had forgotten a previous appointment. I just dropped by to apologize.”
I stared at her. The clear, fragile profile etched deeply into my mind. I felt a chill sweeping all the excitement out of me. I was suddenly angry. “You’re joking!” I accused flatly.
She didn’t answer.
I took a step toward her. “If you had another appointment you would have called me,” I said roughly. “You didn’t have to come up here for that. There are too many telephones in this town.”
She turned toward the door and started away from me. I could feel an angry, helpless frustration choking up in me. I seized her shoulders and turned her toward me. “Why are you lying to me?” I demanded, staring into her face.
There was a bright shining moisture in her eyes. “Brad, I’m not lying to you,” she answered in a small voice.
I paid no attention to her denial. “What are you afraid of, Elaine?” I asked harshly.
I could feel her slump suddenly under my hands as if all the strength had run out of her. The tears were
clear in her eyes now. “Let me go, Brad,” she whispered. “Haven’t I had enough trouble?”
Her tiny voice spilled over me like a spray of cold water, washing away my anger. I dropped my hands and walked slowly back to my desk. I slumped into my chair. After a moment I looked up at her. “Okay, Elaine,” I said. “You can go if you want.”
She hesitated, looking back at me. “Brad, I’m sorry.”
I didn’t answer.
I watched the door close behind her and then looked blackly down at my desk. She was right. There was no arguing about it. I was only looking for trouble. This was no dame that you could pick up for a night and then toss away when you were satisfied. This baby had class and the only way you could play was for keeps.
I stuck a cigarette between my lips and lit it. It was probably the best thing that could have happened. Forty-three was too old to start getting the dreams of youth.
Somehow the day crept by, and about five o’clock when the telephone rang there was nothing left inside me but the vague ache of a might-have-been. I picked up the phone.
“Paul Remey on the phone, boss,” Mickey said.
I switched over. “Paul, how are you?” I asked.
“Fine, Brad,” he answered. “Free for dinner tonight?”
Surprise crept into my voice. “Sure,” I said quickly. “Where the devil are you?”
“I’m in town,” he laughed at my surprise. “I had to mend a fence for the Chief. Edith came in with me to do a little shopping. I just got the bright idea of calling you for dinner. It’s got to be early though. I’m getting the nine o’clock plane back.”
“Wonderful,” I said, making my voice as cordial as I could. “Suppose we meet at Twenty-One at six? We can take our time over dinner, and then I’ll drive you out to the airport.”
“Okay,” he replied. “See you there.”
I put down the phone and looked out the window. It was almost dark, with the surprising early dark that comes after daylight saving time is over. I felt very tired. All I wanted to do was to go home and crawl into bed and sleep away the vague unsatisfied feeling inside me. But there were some things that I had to do.
Harold Robbins Thriller Collection Page 4