by Dianne Emley
At the building’s entrance, Iris tried to pull open the heavy glass door and found it locked. She noticed a button set in a brass plaque to the left of the door and pressed it. She didn’t hear any response to the buzzer, but momentarily, something in the door metallically clicked. She again pulled the door. It opened.
She walked into a large room that was several stories tall with pearl gray marble floors and brilliantly white walls. A ramp carpeted in pale blue extended around each wall and slowly rose three stories until it reached closed double doors of dark wood. Lit display cases were set in the walls along the ramp. They appeared to be full of objects, but Iris didn’t pay too much attention to them. She was mesmerized by the antique cars. The entire ground floor was covered with spit-and-polish perfect cars. There was no one around.
Iris wandered among the cars, ogling the Lamborghinis, Rolls Royces, Cadillacs, and Bugattis. There was a collection of small sports cars with Alfa Romeos, Austin Healeys and even an early Triumph.
“Ma’am?”
She hadn’t seen the tall, good-looking, twenty-something man enter the area. Perhaps he’d been standing there the entire time watching her. She was glad she hadn’t touched anything.
“Miss Thorne?”
She walked purposefully toward him, her pump heels resounding sharply and, she hoped, authoritatively. “Yes, I’m Iris Thorne.” She extended her hand. “And you are…?”
He hesitated momentarily before taking her hand, as if surprised that she had initiated physical contact. He shook her hand briefly but firmly. “Baines.”
Something in his bearing and the formality of his speech suggested a military background. He wore a navy blue suit, a crisp white shirt woven with fine blue lines, highly polished black shoes, and a small enameled pin of the U.S. flag in his lapel. He was clean-cut, with a closely shaved jaw and fair hair cut so short, his scalp showed through. His pale eyebrows and eyelashes were almost invisible. He had a squat nose and a small mouth that was fixed in an expressionless line. Everything about him was unremarkable, except for his eyes. These were deeply set and a clear, icy blue.
“The Crosses have arrived. T. Duke is completing some business and will be with you shortly.” His voice echoed in the large room. “The elevator is this way.” He gestured toward the far side of the building. He was wearing a large signet ring on his right hand. Affiliations seemed important to him.
“Can I go up the ramp?”
He seemed dismayed that she had suggested an alternative. “Of course.” He extended his hand in the direction of the carpeted ramp and waited for Iris to begin walking. Once she did, he followed a few paces behind.
She looked back at him as she walked on the plush blue carpet, finding his formality amusing. “Is Baines your first or last name?”
“I prefer to be known as just Baines.”
“Are you a bodyguard or something?”
“I’m T. Duke’s driver.”
“Just Baines is just the driver? You seem like a capable guy. I bet you do more for T. Duke than just drive.” She smiled broadly at him. It had no effect. “A man like T. Duke must have made a few enemies.”
“I drive, ma’am.”
“I bet you used to be a police officer. A Secret Service agent, maybe?”
“No, ma’am.”
Iris walked a few more steps and again turned. “You an Army man, Baines?”
“Marines, ma’am.”
She’d suspected that Baines would refuse to be misidentified.
“Look at this stuff!” Iris arrived at the first display case which was full of brightly painted porcelain miniatures of ladies’ shoes. There were fancy slippers, high-buttoned boots, and high heels, all daubed with gold paint. Three other cases contained more of the same.
Beyond the shoes were several cases of porcelain carriages, each with a driver holding reins of fine gauge chain, leading a team of porcelain horses. After that, there were cases of delicate china plates, cups, and saucers. Then there were teapots. Then dolls with fragile glass faces and real hair, dressed in period costumes. Then toby jugs of all sizes.
After that, came the Disney memorabilia. Dozens of Mickey Mouse figures crowded several cases. Also on display were Donald Duck, Goofy, Snow White, and so on. After that, there was Coca-Cola memorabilia, followed by case after case of Depression glassware, followed by cheerful cookie jars and salt shakers of the 1940s and 1950s. There were pillboxes, makeup compacts, and antique toys. It was an entire museum—too much to absorb.
Iris and Baines had walked up two stories in silence. She finally spoke. “Must be nice to be rich, huh?”
“I wouldn’t know, ma’am.”
“This is a side of T. Duke I didn’t expect. Teapots and porcelain slippers. Very interesting.”
Baines didn’t respond.
They’d almost reached the top of the landing and the set of tall wood doors. As she went up, Iris trailed her hand against the steel railing that bounded the ramp, looked down at the antique cars three stories beneath them, and glanced at the examples of conspicuous consumption packed inside the display cases lining the walls.
“I understand why someone might want an Aladdin-style teapot manufactured by Hall for their collection,” Iris continued, playing it through. “I can even see owning one in each color they were made in, but buying every single one in existence is another game altogether. My impression is that T. Duke Sawyer isn’t content to have some of something, he has to have it all.”
There was silence behind her.
Iris didn’t really think he’d respond. To herself Iris considered how T. Duke’s acquisitiveness was reflected in his attitude regarding Pandora. Bridget had told her T. Duke had been extraordinarily intrusive in Pandora’s affairs, acting as if he owned much more than 20 percent of the firm. She’d confessed to Iris that she now regretted having taken USA Assets’ money—even though she’d never let Kip know that.
This meeting today was a courtesy call to inform T. Duke of Bridget’s plans to take Pandora public. Of course, she could take the firm public without Kip or T. Duke’s blessing. She owned 60 percent of the stock. Kip and USA Assets owned 20 percent each. Bridget expected T. Duke to support her plan. Why wouldn’t he? It meant a nice return on USA Assets’ money.
One of the double doors at the top of the stairs opened unexpectedly, startling Iris. Through it walked a tall, leggy, pretty woman with long, blonde hair. She was wearing a well-made pink suit that was suggestively short and snug; a hint of ample cleavage was visible between the lapels. Her makeup was model-perfect and dramatic for the middle of the day. Oddly, her lips were unadorned, without lipstick.
She walked in her high-heeled, do-me shoes to the wood-paneled elevator near the double doors, pressed the button, then turned to look at Iris and Baines. She slightly parted her lips, reached out her tongue, and touched the depression above her top lip. The gesture was frankly sexual. Her eyes were smug.
Iris glanced at Baines, who was still two paces behind her. His face remained immobile, but his eyes sparked.
The elevator doors opened. The woman got in, faced front and bit her bottom lip. The doors silently closed.
“T. Duke’s secretary?” Iris ventured, although she doubted the woman’s skills had anything to do with word processing.
He ignored her question and held open one of the double doors.
“Thank you for the tour.” Iris stepped through the doorway. “Tell me, what kind of a guy is T. Duke to work with?”
Baines’s eyes shone. “He’s an inspiration. It’s an honor to work for him.”
“I doubt Holly Free would have shared your opinion.”
Baines stared hard at her.
“You must know who Holly Free is.” Iris didn’t wait for a response. “I read all about her and T. Duke in a Business Week article I found on the Internet. About six years ago, T. Duke was having a little party in a Las Vegas hotel suite. Before the night was over, Ms. Free, who made her living as a prostitute, ended up
flying off a seventeenth-floor balcony. She didn’t have a soft landing. T. Duke’s twenty-three-year-old son, Randall, was convicted of manslaughter.”
Baines voice was even but tinged with anger. “Randall Sawyer was a drug addict and alcoholic. He was stoned out of his mind that night. That girl made some comment he didn’t like and over she went.”
Iris continued, “Randall Sawyer later claimed he took the fall for his old man. He had a lot less to lose by the scandal than T. Duke did. Randall wasn’t expected to serve more than eighteen months at the most. Ended up serving five years.”
“Randall got all the time that was coming to him. His father was not about to help him get off scot-free.”
“People wondered whether Randall was T. Duke’s hired gun.”
“T. Duke Sawyer does not have hired guns.”
“You’re sure about that, Baines?”
“Positive.” He continued holding one of the heavy double doors open.
Iris looked at his lapel pin. It was then she noticed that instead of stars on a field of blue, there was this insignia: 1x1.
“T. Duke is one of the finest people I’ve ever met.”
“You’re not mad at me, are you, Baines?”
“No.”
“I wondered, because you stopped calling me ma’am.”
“No, ma’am.”
CHAPTER SIX
Iris stepped through the doorway into a large anteroom. A competent-looking middle-aged woman dressed in a conservative suit was working at a desk in a corner. Two couches upholstered in berry and ecru stripes were against the opposite corner. A small coffee table in front of them held several thick books and the remnants of refreshments that had probably been served to Kip and Bridget: a china coffee cup and saucer, a small china plate with cookies, a cut crystal glass, and a can of Pepsi. The books were about modern art. The room’s rear wall was taken up by a large window that overlooked the park-like grounds surrounding the building.
The walls were painted flat white like those in the gigantic lobby, but instead of display cases, they were hung with abstract paintings. Iris didn’t recognize any of them—which didn’t mean anything, given her thin knowledge of art. There was a carved wooden door was on one wall.
“He’s just called them in.” The woman at the desk made a sweeping gesture with her hand toward the door.
Baines opened it for Iris and she stepped into another office, larger than the anteroom. This room was also hung with paintings and furnished with a couch, chairs, and a coffee table covered with art books. The centerpiece was a huge desk made from a slab of polished black marble. The desk was void of everything except a multiline telephone. There wasn’t even a paper clip to be found. A telephone was the only tool T. Duke needed.
Yet another door led off this room and Iris wondered where she was going next in this opulent but weird place. She felt a vague and unpleasant sensation of being imprisoned.
Baines had already crossed the room and opened that door, but Iris lingered, trying to take it all in. She noticed that the throw pillows and cushions on the couch were askew and mashed as if someone had been relaxing or napping there. On the coffee table in front of it was a crumpled tissue smeared with what appeared to be pink lipstick. Iris remembered the woman at the elevator. Now a girl only removes her lipstick to avoid smearing it on herself or someone or something else. T. Duke, you old devil you, she thought to herself.
Baines was standing impatiently with a slightly disdainful curve to his lips. Iris sauntered past him and through the doorway, restraining herself from patting his cheek to irritate him.
She spotted Bridget and breathed a sigh of relief at seeing a friendly face. Bridget and Kip were seated at a large, oval table of dark wood that was circled with armless chairs upholstered in a nubby, bright raspberry-colored fabric.
Bridget smiled at Iris. She had been idly doodling with a cheap felt-tip pen on a small, spiral-bound notebook on the table in front of her. A half-full goblet of cola and ice was also on the table. She was wearing a herringbone weave suit with slacks and a cream silk blouse. She looked attentive and alert, exuding the high energy that had always made Iris, no slug herself, feel like a slacker. But Iris detected fatigue around Bridget’s eyes.
Kip, who was sitting with his back to the door, turned when Iris came in. He nodded at her, kicking his head back once and raising his eyebrows. He was wearing worn jeans, a rumpled, white dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up and the collar open, and flip-flops on bare feet. The soles of the shoes consisted of layers of bright colored rubber. An open laptop computer was in front of him.
From the head of the long table, T. Duke Sawyer animatedly waved Iris toward him as he continued talking. “So the blind man asks the bartender for another drink. Bartender makes it, puts it on the bar, blind man drinks it. After a while, just like he did before, the blind man picks up his Seeing Eye dog and swings it around by the tail. The bartender’s watching this. Finally, he can’t restrain himself any longer. ‘Mister,’ he says, ‘I served you three drinks, and after each drink, you pick up your dog and swing the poor thing around by the tail. I’ve just got to ask. What in heaven’s name are you doing?’ The blind guy shrugs and says, ‘Just having a look around.’”
T. Duke looked pop-eyed at his guests and then slapped his thigh, threw his head back, and laughed.
Iris laughed as well.
Baines, standing near the door, cracked a grin.
Bridget politely smiled, caught Iris’s eye across the table and raised an eyebrow ever so slightly. Iris divined the message: “Just like I described him, isn’t he?”
Kip was frowning and staring at a point in the center of the table, as if mulling over what he’d just heard.
Undaunted, T. Duke said, “See, Kip, the blind guy, the Seeing Eye dog”—T. Duke moved his arm as if swinging a lariat—“so the blind guy could have a look. Get it? Have a look. The dog could see but the guy—”
Kip puffed, “I got it. I just don’t think it’s funny.”
“You don’t think it’s funny,” T. Duke repeated. “Well I guess humor’s a sort of individual thing.” He stood and walked around the table toward Iris. “And this must be your investment banker, Iris Thorne.”
She briskly shook his hand. “Very nice to meet you, Mr. Sawyer.”
“Call me T. Duke. Everyone does. From presidents and royalty down to the folks who scrub and clean for me, bless their hearts. We have no formality here. We’re all in this together.” He still clasped her hand and laughed heartily.
From her research, Iris knew that T. Duke was fifty-six years old and a descendent of Sam Houston, the Texas statesman who was president of the Republic of Texas, then U.S. senator and governor after Texas joined the Union. Although T. Duke had made his home in California since 1979, he remained an active and vocal participant in Texan as well as Californian politics. He’d made his first million before he was twenty-five, turning a $1,000 investment in a beat-up truck into a successful overnight package delivery company. The heady mergers and acquisitions craze during the go-go eighties were custom-made for T. Duke’s skills and temperament. It all came crashing down when his ambitions got ahead of his abilities and the law.
T. Duke had a face that could either make or break a person. It was a springboard for T. Duke’s trademark self-deprecating humor. His head was shaped like an angular egg with a high and broad forehead, sharply prominent cheekbones, and a narrow, square chin that had a slight dimple in the middle. His nose was large all over, as broad as it was long. A pair of pendulous ears, showcased by T. Duke’s closely cropped and well-pomaded graying brown hair, hung like front-door wreaths on either side of his head.
But the most remarkable feature among the eclectic assortment on T. Duke’s face was his eyes, which were small in proportion to the rest of his face and dark brown. They shone with intelligence, persistence, and right now, with humor. Iris suspected that could change in an instant to malice.
He was wearing a g
ray suit with a fine chalk stripe, a bright white, button-down shirt, and a red tie that was fancifully printed with tiny images of Mickey Mouse—an appropriate choice since the Sawyer Company had a large position in Disney. Iris heard he always wore handmade western boots for every occasion, the heels and soles built extra high to boost his five-foot-six-inch height. Today his boots were of black, tooled leather.
Iris said, “I’m not an investment banker. I’m branch manager of McKinney Alitzer’s L.A. office. I’m hoping to use McKinney’s I.B. division to underwrite Pandora’s IPO.”
“Pandora’s IPO.” T. Duke finally let go of Iris’s hand. “That’s why we’re here, isn’t it?” He looked at her. “Welcome and have a seat. Can I offer something? Soda pop? Coffee?”
“Anything diet.”
Without a word, Baines left the room.
T. Duke resumed his position, leaned deeply back into his chair and propped his feet on top of the table.
Iris looked around.
The room was oval, the walls painted Wedgwood blue with ornately carved crown and base moldings painted glossy white. There were several oil paintings, all nineteenth-century landscapes that contrasted sharply with the abstract work displayed in the other rooms.
Baines returned, first placing a coaster on the table in front of Iris before setting a crystal goblet filled with ice and cola on it.
T. Duke clamped his hands behind his head. “Bridget, bring me up-to-date on Pandora.”
Bridget leaned her arms against the table and spread her hands in T. Duke’s direction. “At midnight, we released the first two levels of Suckers Finish Last onto the Internet.”
T. Duke nodded as he gazed at the ceiling. “A marketing method you folks pioneered that’s now widely imitated. It’s brilliantly simple, using the same logic that turns songs into hits by playing them over and over on the radio. You get your Net surfers hooked with a small free taste and hope they want more.”
“And they do want more,” Bridget interjected. “We’ve already had a hundred-thousand orders—a twenty-five percent increase over sales of Slade Slayer 3-D during the same time period. Slade Slayer 3-D generated eighteen million in sales. I expect sales of Suckers Finish Last to top twenty-five million. There’s already buzz in the chat rooms about how Suckers’ three-D environment tops everything out there.”